These past few months we’ve featured young volunteers who are stepping up to be the next generation of volunteers for Operation Walk Los Angeles. We’re happy to introduce University of Wisconsin-Madison student, Isabella Umali-Grawe. We thank Isabella in advance for taking time to out of her busy schedule during midterms to share information about herself, her goals after graduation, and why it is important for her to volunteer on our upcoming mission to the Philippines this summer.
Patient Updates: Juliana Kanseba
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This past summer during our recent mission to Arusha, Tanzania, we had the honor of meeting Juliana and her daughter, Josepha.
Juliana and Josepha live in the countryside about an hour and a half outside of Arusha. Juliana used to travel by bus, a three-hour round trip to Arusha, six days a week to work at her job in a textile mill. She worked at the factory for over twenty years before the onset of osteoarthritis in her knees started to slow her down both on her travels into the city and at her job.
Project C.U.R.E
Since 1987, Project C.U.R.E has been delivering life-saving medical equipment and supplies to hospitals and clinics throughout the world. They are the world’s largest distributor of donated international medical relief, touching lives in over 135 countries.
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Congratulations to Our Volunteers
Congratulations to our volunteers from Kaiser Permanente on earning the Kaiser Permanente David Lawrence Community Service Award for outstanding volunteer action. This award named in honor of Dr. David Lawrence, former CEO of Kaiser Permanente and lifelong advocate of improving health worldwide, recognizes individuals and groups that demonstrate extraordinary efforts to improve the health of local communities and beyond. Read more
Update From Sarina Parks
We wanted to share the progress of our student volunteer, Sarina Parks and her continued efforts to collect items to help our patients during our 2024 mission to the Philippines.
Thank you, Sarina, for your dedication and hard work! We can’t wait to hear more.
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The Venice Ravens for the Win!
Once again, the next generation of philanthropists joined together to make a difference. Just before the New Year, the Venice Ravens basketball team assembled post-op bags for patients in the Philippines. Each bag was packed with care and personalized with the OpWalk logo.
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Bryant Sunol (Cuba 2022)
When we first met Bryant, he was a twenty-one-year-old young man who had gone from a promising athlete to being confined to a wheelchair. Rheumatoid arthritis had frozen both of his hips and his future looked bleak.
Bryant was given a choice or receiving a bilateral hip replacement or to remain as he was with restricted movement. He took a leap of faith and had surgery and got a new chance at life.
Today we are so happy to hear that he is doing amazingly well. Here are messages from both him and his mother, letting us know how surgery can change a life.
“Greetings to everyone there, I don’t remember the names very well, but I do remember everyone who helped me through the most difficult moment of my life.
Several young people like me who are here in Cuba have written to me to give them strength because they are here with cases similar to mine without being able to walk, I help them, and I like that. I like that I can give them hope.
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| Bryant – One day after surgery | One year after surgery |
Now I am not afraid of anything. I am happy
I am self-employed. I have a kiosk selling jams and looking for merchandise and things like that on my motorcycle.
Thank God and you who saved my life, I am eternally grateful.”
Bryant Pedro Sunol
“Every day I thank God for putting you on our path and allowing my son to walk again.
His life took a radical change from the minute you performed the miracle in the operating room.
I am more than grateful to you for making my son have a better life.”
Zenia Sunol Gomez
Continuing The Legacy – Bringing His Expertise Back Home
Aamer Malik, MD, not only wants to improve orthopaedic expertise in his native Africa, but he wants to keep it there. That’s why, in addition to serving as Chief of the Hip Unit at the Hospital Universitari Sagrat Cor in Barcelona and Tutor for orthopaedic resident education, he also makes two trips to Zanzibar each year. Through the Neurosurgery Education and Development Foundation’s Orthopaedic Program, he coordinates surgical missions in East Africa to expand orthopaedic education there. It’s a commitment he learned from his mentor, the late Lawrence D. Dorr, MD, who not only taught him about hip and knee surgery but also the importance of giving back.
“In Africa, we give people the capacity to take care of their children, go back to work, and integrate into society in a way that is very fulfilling,” he continued. “It’s really magical to perform a surgery and see how a patient who was unwell becomes well within six weeks. That patient can go back to a normal life.”
Meet Sarina Parks
Meet Sarina Parks, a student volunteer slated to travel with the Operation Walk Los Angeles team on their mission to the Philippines in 2024, and learn why volunteering with our organization is personal.
Introducing Student Volunteer, Sarina Parks
Why I want to volunteer with Operation Walk
Operation Walk Wins the Day
My husband, Jason and I were first-time attendees at the Operation Walk Los Angeles Annual Gala this past October. We were invited by my father Bruce Brereton and his wife Joan. My father has had two knee replacements, so we know how much surgery can change someone’s life.
It was a treasure to learn more about the miracles the team and organization are doing. It touched our hearts and made a great impact.
Innocent (Tanzania 2023)
Bilateral Hip Replacement
Avascular Necrosis. A condition that causes the death of your bone tissue due to the lack of blood supply. Eventually, this leads to tiny cracks in the bone and if gone untreated it causes the bone to collapse.
Imagine you’re 28 years old. You’ve just gotten married, enjoying your job with a travel company, meeting people from around the world and sharing your country and customs with them. You find out you are going to be a father for the first time and life seems to be on the right path.
Then your mobility lessens, your hips begin to stiffen, and your world begins to shrink. Lifting luggage into the truck at work is no longer possible, being able to walk in your own home becomes limited. Then, just as your son is born, you no longer can stand on your own. Both hips are affected. Now, at age 30, things are no longer certain.
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| Innocent two days after surgery | Innocent months after surgery |
This was Innocent’s life. He couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, everything seemed dark. But his family and doctors rallied around him and told him about an opportunity to receive joint replacement surgery from Operation Walk.
It was a leap of faith. To restore his mobility, he would need both hips replaced and at the same time. It seemed he would have to learn to walk all over again. But Innocent took that leap. With his mother, father, and brother by his side, he had the surgery and went through the recovery period.
We’re excited to share his father’s note sent to our coordinator, Ava Baldwin, and the footage of him now. We’re so happy for Innocent and his family. One dream he shared with us was he longed to be able to play soccer with his son Nathan. Now that dream will come true.
“Hello Ava.
Praise the Lord. I got your message and feel joy all over my body. Innocent is doing fine with his baby and his wife as you can see in the clips. Please pass those clips to the donors and give them our appreciation for what they did for my son. He was crippled but now he can walk again, by himself, unaided.”