| October/November 2009 | Home | Membership | Register Online |
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Recently I heard Dr. Mary Malca speak at the American Women's Literary Club. Her talk was about her passion; Aniquem, a rehabilitation center for burn victims. She is so passionate about her work that she was almost brought to tears in describing her early work. This is the story of an interesting woman doing necessary and interesting work. Dr. Malca's background is a combination of graduate and postgraduate studies which included medicine and business medicine. Perfect for what was to become her life's work. Dr. Malca tells us that Aniquem began when her husband, Paul Rodriguez, a plastic surgeon, began working with the burn unit at Children's Hospital in Lima in 1990. “He had done a lot of work trying to improve the quality of care of burned children and the photos of these children so deeply impressed me that I couldn't get their images out of my head for days”. One, in particular, had no eyes, nose or mouth and a terrible scar covered her face. So when my husband asked me to help create an organization to work in the preventions of burns in children, I accepted. And so, she continued, Aniquem was founded in March 1999 by a small group of professionals headed by my husband. We traveled to Chile to see how they worked with burn victims. After that we started working in Prevention workshops with local organizations such as mother's clubs in the outskirts of Lima. We had one volunteer working part time in an office set up in my house We signed an agreement with Children's Hospital and started working. We developed art workshops for children while in the hospital and many other activities. After two years our contract with the hospital was not renewed because the new administration didn't understand our innovative methods. We realized that we had to start again which we did with volunteers from my husband's office. We then received a small grant from Shell International to start the operation of a Rehabilitation Center for burned kids. We could rent a small facility near the hospital and hire a small team; a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a pressure garment specialist, a psychologist and a secretary. All our services were offered in the afternoon as we could only afford to pay them part time. All other people working at Aniquem were volunteers and continued to do so, including the Board of Directors and Dr. Rodriguez who is the plastic surgeon working twice a week. Now we work 8 hours and I am looking for a new facility. The Board asked me to work full time and I am currently in charge of all the administration and the quality of services we provide. I am personally involved with children who have facial disfigurements and for whom we have developed many new services. Aniquem survives through donations from individuals and institutions among other fund raising activities. We look forward to growing in three directions:
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