IMAHelps is changing the lives of impoverished people around the world. But our medical humanitarian outreach efforts do much more than make a difference in the lives of the poor. Our volunteers find that helping others changes their lives, too, whether it’s re-igniting their interest in medicine or opening their minds and hearts to better appreciate everything we have in life and the positive feelings that come from helping those in need.

Here’s a closer look at how IMAHelps is changing peoples lives:

Nataly Benavidez

Nataly Benavidez was only 6 years old when fireworks exploded in her home in Ecuador and burned nearly half of her body, horribly scaring her arms, stomach and legs. The accident was so devastating to Nataly’s self esteem that she became a depressed and reclusive child who never left her home.

IMAHelps volunteers changed Nataly’s outlook on life and gave her new hope for the future by performing a series of skin graft operations that have restored her movement so that she can play like a normal kid again.

Darwin Bolaños

Darwin Bolaños was a 35-year-old chauffeur in Ecuador when he lost both of his legs from the knee down in a traffic accident that devastated his family, particularly his 10-year-old daughter and six-year-old son.

But IMA volunteers fitted Bolaños with two new prosthetic legs that enabled him to walk on his own again without crutches. Bolaños, through tears, said the new legs would enable him to go back to work and also help his wife around the house. He also plans to play ball with his children once again.

Santos de Cruz Meza

For 67 years, Santos de Cruz Meza was the neighborhood pariah. Born with a cleft lip in a poor village in Nicaragua, her deformity worsened with age, twisting her nose while the top of her mouth produced a frightening jumble of rotting, unusable teeth.

Moved by her suffering, IMA volunteers removed Cruz’s teeth and shaved her maxilla so that she could be fitted with dentures. Then they sewed her cleft lip shut, closing the fissure that had subjected her to nearly seven decades or torment and ridicule.

Tania Regalado Sanchez

When Tania Regalado Sanchez was born in Quito, Ecuador, the deformities in her partially undeveloped face were so severe that her father abandoned her and her mother.

But IMAHelps volunteers gave little Tania hope for brighter future by flying her to the U.S. and providing this brave 9-year-old girl with a series of reconstructive surgeries that changed her life.

To top it off, before she went into surgery, IMAHelps volunteers outfitted Tania with new clothes and took her Disneyland.

Alondra Meneces

When Alondra Meneces was born in Esteli, Nicaragua, her parents were immediately stricken with grief. Not only did she have a cleft lip and a cleft palate, but her fingers were fused together and she was missing her right foot.

But Nicaraguan doctors told her parents not to worry because IMA’s volunteer surgeons would be coming soon. IMA surgeons separated Alondra’s fingers and closed her cleft lip. When they return to Nicaragua in 2012, they plan to repair her cleft palate.

– Carina Briones, 26, Alondra’s mother.

Doraldina Quevedo and “Celestina”

In some cases, there are no medical solutions. Doraldina Quevedo suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and lost the ability to walk 15 years ago. Her husband and three children have literally carried her from place to place because they couldn’t afford a wheelchair. After hearing Doraldina’s story, IMAHelps volunteers took up a collection amongst themselves and bought her a wheelchair.

IMAHelps volunteers ended up raising enough money amongst themselves to buy several wheelchairs, walkers and canes. They donated one of the wheelchairs to “Celestina,” a 95-year-old woman whose family literally abandoned her at a hospital in Nicaragua. IMAHelps Founder Ines Allen intervened on Celestina’s behalf and placed her in a local nursing home run by volunteers.

The Impact on IMAHelps Volunteers

As one might imagine, volunteering on IMA’s medical missions enriches the lives of the volunteers in ways they could never imagine.

― Dr. Christopher Tiner, a plastic and maxillofacial surgeon with practices in Pasadena and Beverly Hills, Calif.

― Betty Gray, an RN from Loma Linda University Medical Center, smiles with 6-year-old Aysel Galeano and her mom after Aysel had a club foot operation in Nicaragua that would enable her to walk normally for the first time in her life.

― Panna Jarussi, an RN with Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage, shows Meghan Soqui, a nursing student, how to check an IV during a recent IMAHelps mission in Nicaragua.