Written by: Ate Nikki Pasion, Admin Officer
Who would have thought that this little cheeky and cute baby girl would struggle and endure pain at a very very young age. As her Mummy Grace shared to us, way back 2014, this Little Angel and her family have faced battles away from their family here in the Philippines. When she was 2 months old, baby Janna with her Mummy Grace and her Daddy flew to Singapore for a nice family trip. Little do they know, while collecting happy memories together, baby Janna got sick. She was diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis and was confined for months in Singapore.
While families and friends helped out and prayed for her, this little warrior didn’t give up and fought bravely for her life. She is, so far, the youngest warrior I have met. As baby Janna turned 4 last 26th of May, 2018,her family chose to partner with U! Happy and celebrated her Birthday with kids from Hospicio De San Jose.
For 200 years, Hospicio de San Jose has accepted the poorest of the poor and families in crisis, and has sheltered them, fed them, clothed them, educated them, cared for them when they were sick or wounded, and helped them go on in this world. For infants and the children, able and not so able, they found families or restored them to their own whenever possible, and when neither was possible, harboured them for life and buried them when they passed away.
As soon as we gathered all the kids from preschool to nursery, we started introducing the volunteers to the kids and caregivers. Then we grouped them into 5. To break the ice, we first had a Magic show by Kuya Romel. Everyone was focused but also had fun watching all the magic tricks. Baby Janna was also invited to perform the floating table with the help of Kuya Romel, we can all see how amazed she was and wondered how they could do magic by controlling the table to float.
Next activity is Art and Crafts. Since it was her first time with Hospicio, and she loves Frozen characters, I decided to teach them how to make a Birthday card with Olaf holding balloons, I asked them to print their tiny little fingers to create balloons by using colourful paints. Then the volunteers helped the kids to write and to put more arts and drawings to the card for baby Janna.
As soon as everyone was done with their art work, Baby Janna chose 2 best cards for each table. But we made sure everyone gets a prize for making a super nice birthday card.
Then our final activity was one of our kids’ favourite, Bubble Show by Arnee. They created different bubble shapes. Kids also enjoyed taking turns entering inside the huge bubble.
After entertaining and teaching them arts, we shared a meal and sing a birthday song for baby Janna.
Thank U! to O’coner Family and friends for doing an event with us. Till next time! 🙂
Want to do an event with us also? Click here — www.uhappyevents.com/create/
