CCPF is the only American organization with all volunteer medical teams providing free multi-specialty surgery and rehabilitative care for children with complex disabilities from underserved communities, as well as education for medical professionals and caregivers.
We have treated more than 1200 children from China, India and Tanzania, improving children's quality of life and health, increasing their chances of leading healthier lives and raising awareness about disabilities.
Join our team!
CCPF is expanding its reach and needs more volunteer pediatric surgeons, rehabilitative doctors and therapists.
“People always say the children are lucky to have us. But it is our luck that we can help them.”
–Gena Palumbo
Volunteers play a vital role providing support for the children pre and post surgery. Pictured at the top is Stephanie Yeh comforting a toddler before an operation. Pictured above is a high school volunteer keeping our young patient engaged before his surgery.
Impact
CCPF enables impact
as a catalyst for immediate, continuous and exponential results. Our surgical team performs life-changing operations. We operate on children with complex conditions, which often require multiple procedures and years of follow-up. Our rehabilitative medicine team trains physical therapists and caregivers with techniques and exercises that can be taught to many others and help innumerable children. We spend several years at each location to provide comprehensive and continuous training in-person and video consultations.
CCPF builds bridges
and cultivates long-term relationships between patients and their care-givers, hospitals, local charities, and socially-oriented entrepreneurs. We spend at least three years in a single location strengthening these ties.
CCPF empowers
our colleagues and supporters to act as local change agents by pushing the boundaries of medical care to those most in need and in developing local philanthropy.
Our Story
Gena Palumbo on CCPF’s inaugural surgical trip in Harbin, 1999.
Following the adoption of a healthy daughter from an orphanage in Nanjing and wanting to ‘give back,’ Gena Palumbo founded CCPF to improve the everyday lives of orphans with disabilities through medical intervention.
With the collaboration, approval and trust of China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs and Ministry of Public Health, a team of leading experts in pediatric surgery from America and China was formed. Underscoring this collaboration was the intent to further American and Chinese relations through philanthropy.
Twenty-five years later and going strong, CCPF has expanded its program to Tanzania and India to provide surgical and rehabilitation to disabled children from underserved communities, and sponsors a fellowship program in New York for medical professionals in our partner countries.
Pictured above is baby Angelina who was among CCPF’s first patients. She was adopted by a CCPF volunteer nurse who was part of the surgical team that operated on her.
Our Stories
Our work results in immediate, continuous and exponential impact. Here are a few more stories to inspire you.
Programs
Since CCPF’s first surgical trip to China in 1999, the need to help disabled children has evolved, as increasingly more children are born with complex conditions and most will not receive advanced medical care. While some children are abandoned and raised in orphanages or social service organizations, others born with disabilities stay at home, even if their families do not have the resources to properly care for them. CCPF has responded by broadening its reach to include all these children in our work.
Dr. David Roye, CCPF China Medical Director and leading world specialist in pediatric orthopedic spine surgeon, connects with a patient as he assesses the child’s condition.
Our programs are free and focus on three areas: surgical intervention, rehabilitation for children with chronic, non-operable conditions and education for physicians, nurses, orphanage therapists and caregivers.
Surgery
Our surgical team is headed by world renowned pediatric orthopedic, urological and plastics surgeons, pediatricians and nurses. They undertake complex, multi-specialty cases with a cross-disciplinary methodology. As this approach is not widely used around the world, we work in tandem with local hospitals and their surgical teams to respond to the most challenging cases and to share our technical knowledge, and learn from each other.
CCPF surgeons tackle complex and challenging cases.
Education
Since 2003, CCPF has sponsored a bi-annual fellowship program to provide additional training for medical professionals who work in the orphanages and hospitals where we are active. The program is designed to provide continuing education for our colleagues while furthering CCPF’s reach and foster greater cultural understanding.
During our medical trips, hands-on training and lectures form a cornerstone of CCPF’s mission. Our cross-cultural approach aims to respond to the needs on the ground and maintain long-term relationships with the people and organizations we work with so the children continue to receive on-going care.
CCPF speech and swallowing therapist, Sharon Greis, provides on-site training for care-givers in Mwanza, Tanzania.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation medicine is as transformative as surgery. Many children suffer from chronic disabilities and surgery is not an option for them. CCPF’s team of doctors, physiatrists, physical, occupational, feeding and speech therapists, and orthotists help children learn how to walk, swallow, play and communicate. The children are relieved of extreme pain and discomfort, and given a better chance to thrive.
CCPF Rehabilitation Medicine Director, Dr. Heakyung Kim, works one-one with children and trains many therapists and care-givers at once.
Something as simple as providing a specially designed seat for infants and toddlers who, otherwise, are laying flat on their back day and night, changes the quality of their life immediately. By altering their position, their visual stimulation is increased, ability to eat and swallow properly improves their health, they can make connections with their caregivers and other children, and develop emotional bonds.
A feeding chair makes it possible for children to eat properly and make contact with their surroundings.
As many children suffer from similar conditions, the training CCPF therapists provide is extremely versatile. The number of children who are treated immediately and in the future is exponential.
Orphanage therapists and care-givers present CCPF’s rehabilitation team with difficult cases. At many as 25 care-givers receive training with each case.
Underscoring this impact is a training program led by CCPF Rehabilitation Medicine Director Dr. Heakyung Kim. This program results in establishing our colleagues as leaders in their field.
CCPF physical and occupational therapists integrate playing as part their approach to therapy.
Team
CCPF Community
It takes about 100 volunteers from the U.S. and a host country to run a joint surgical and rehabilitation trip. This collaboration brings together communities of medical professionals, orphanage and hospital leadership, and lay people. The process for each trip begins 6 months beforehand, coordinating with the hospitals and NGOs, confirming the volunteer medical team members, reviewing patient charts, arranging for medical supplies and scheduling travel.
Board of Directors
Administration
Partners
Why donate?
Critical care pediatrician, Deo Aromolaran, assesses a child ‘s condition during a CCPF mission trip in Tanzania.
Disabled children, regardless of where they live, are in need. In the past 25 years, CCPF has made unimaginable contributions to improve the lives of over 1300 children and foster relations between the U.S. and our host countries. Imagine the impact we can make in the next 25 years!
Donate with confidence. All funds are managed and allocated by CCPF in New York.
CCPF is a registered non-profit 501(c)(3) and maintains no religious, political or agency affiliations.
Please consider making a donation that has real impact
$5,000 allows 5 children to receive rehabilitative therapy
$3,500 covers costs for 2 children to benefit from surgery
$2,500 contributes to medical team travel expenses
$1,000 enables 2 virtual rehab training sessions that will help many children
$500 enables patient & their caregivers travel to a hospital
$250 covers medical supplies
$100 updates medical charts
$50 covers the cost of X-rays
THANK YOU!
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