2013 Is Going to Be a Great Year for Kids’ Hearts!

This will be a really incredible year for all of those who work and volunteer for the International Children’s Heart Foundation. We have been a little cryptic in announcing this year’s schedule but you can now find it posted on the web page at www.babyheart.org. A summary of our anticipated schedule for this year is Iraq- three cities, Nasiriyah, Najaf and Basra. We will spend a total of 41 weeks in Iraq and there is the possibility this could increase to as many as 53 weeks if our next 1 Year Program is approved for Najaf by the Iraqi Ministry of Health; Libya- our program in Benghazi continues, in the first half of the year we will be there 4 weeks, and if our 1 Year Program is approved we will spend another 16 weeks there later in the year. Kharkiv, Ukraine- this is one of our longest running programs currently and we will be in Kharkiv for 7 weeks this year. Honduras- 8 weeks. Santiago, Dominican Republic- Starting our 8th year there and this year we plan 8 weeks there again. Also in the Dominican Republic we are opening OUR OWN HEART CENTER in Jimani, which will serve the children of Haiti and the children of DR who live in this remote corner, 8 weeks are planned there! Ecuador, our Guayaquil program continues with at least 8 weeks in-country and perhaps 10 if the Ministry approves our new proposal. We are adding Macedonia this year, and plan to spend 8 weeks in Skopje. Russia- Our program in Kemerovo continues with 4 trips planned for a total of 8 weeks there also. We have two other sites that we have not finalized yet for this year, Paraguay and Egypt. If we spend the time planned for these two we will be in Paraguay twice for 1 week each and Egypt twice for two weeks each time.

Not sure about you, but I lost count of exactly how many weeks we have jammed into one year, but it is way over 52! Help us help the children of the world with heart disease, visit www.babyheart.org and make a donation, everyone of every size counts towards a child’s heart!

– William Novick, MD