Resident helps disfigured African boy

from the oak Park Leaves

By BRIDGET KENNEDY

While looking out into a crowd of people in Zambia in November 2005, a disfigured little boy caught the attention of Dr. Lisa Thornton, an Oak Park resident and pediatrician.

Gift Benwa was outside playing with friends when a wind storm hit his tiny village. A metal roof flew off the top of a hut and hit Gift, breaking both his arms and shaving off his face.

Living with no running water or electricity, Gift's family threw a towel around him and took him to the hospital.

Gift was only 5 years old when he was hit.

By the time Thornton saw Gift two years later, he had already had a number of surgeries, but Thornton said they were "substandard."

"His arms, of course, healed fine, but his face was a bit of a problem," she said. "It was clear he had sustained trauma through his nose and mouth."

Thornton and her husband, Charles Smith, were in Zambia through World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.

"When you're in Africa, everything seems so possible," Thornton said. "There's so many problems. So I said, 'Oh, we should bring him to the United States.'

"That was ambitious," she said.

With help from World Vision, it took Thornton more than a year to bring Gift to the United States. During that time, she also contacted a handful of hospitals, asking if they would help reconstruct Gift's face. Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago performed Gift's first surgery.

Once Mt. Sinai was on board, the University of Chicago Medical Center agreed to do the next three surgeries.

Both hospitals, along with surgeons Dr. Larry Gottlieb, who works in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and Dr. Rodger Wade Pielet, a cosmetic surgeon in private practice in Chicago, agreed to do all the work for free.

Between surgeries, Gift, now 10, has been attending third grade at Holmes Elementary School. He didn't speak English when he arrived in August, but is now thriving in the language.

"My goal for him this year was for him to be fluent in his oral English, and to understand his friends and his teachers so that he could be successful in class," English as a Second Language teacher Sarah Bingaman said. "That goal was not a high enough goal for our friend, Gift. He learned to speak English very quickly, and so then we started working on reading and writing, and he's just doing a great job with that too."

Gift, who got his name for being the first boy in his family, said he likes speaking English and being at Holmes School.

"I learned so fast," Gift said, while working on a workbook. "I didn't know it before. It really wasn't hard."

Because Gift has excelled in the last year, Thornton and World Vision agreed he cannot go back to his old school.

"The school he was going to was basically a one-room schoolhouse in his village," Thornton said, adding Gift is now far beyond his classmates in Zambia.

"He's fluent in English and he's highly valued. It's a great launching pad (for Gift) to be a leader in his country," she said.

Next year, Gift will attend Lechwe International School, which is built on the British education system, in Zambia. Lechwe, a boarding school, is one of the best in the nation, Thornton said.

To help defray costs, teachers, staff and students at Holmes School have sent out a flier to community members, asking them to help donate toward Gift's education.

TO DONATE

Donations toward Gift's continuing education in Zambia can be made to:

The Steans Family Foundation
Holmes School Office
508 N. Kenilworth Ave.
Oak Park, IL 60302