Our Mission
CSF Global Partnership’s mission is to develop and help implement improvements in feeding and nutrition for children with Cerebral Palsy in Bangladesh and other low-resource settings.
Our Partnership
CSF Global is an NGO centered in Sirajganj, Bangladesh that works to provide resources to children and families affected by cerebral palsy. They currently provide assistive devices to children, including hearing aids, eyeglasses, wheelchairs, and canes, as well as educate communities on cerebral palsy through community informants and parent self-help groups. In addition to these services, they have centers to help provide children with physiotherapy and occupational therapy. CSF Global has also helped to establish a CP Registry in and around Sirajganj to document the number of children and families affected by CP and to help them develop and improve the services they offer.
Background
Children with cerebral palsy suffer from damage to areas in the brain that control motor function, thus their ability to communicate or feed is often greatly affected. During M-HEAL’s needs assessment trip, we interviewed several families that mentioned difficulty feeding their child and that their child was unable to feed themselves. We also observed mothers feeding their children during therapy sessions, instead of the child working to feed themselves. Improving a child’s ability to self-feed will help to establish their independence and also improve their upper extremity motor function, which will be applicable to other areas of life.
Many of the solutions that already exist are not an adequate solution for children in Bangladesh because they are expensive to purchase and distribute, and are not a sustainable solution for CSF Global. We also expect that the types of devices available in America would not be readily accepted in Bangladesh, where most people do not eat with utensils. We need to keep both cost and cultural sensitivity in mind as we develop our solution.
1 in 4
children with CP will be non-verbal and have a hard time asking for food
1 in 3
children have specific difficulties with speech and language
over 20%
registered children with CP in Bangladesh are severely underweight & have severe stunting
Our Project
Over the past few years, our team has developed various assistive feeding devices and designed an educational booklet catered towards caregivers of children with cerebral palsy. After extensive review and feedback from clinics, therapists, and physicians, we traveled to Bangladesh in the Summer of 2024 to test one of our assistive feeding devices, the corrugated plate, and distribute our educational booklet. We conducted a study to determine if our device improved the ability of the child to self-feed over a period of time spent using the device. We received positive results and gained valuable feedback from children with CP and their caregivers on improving our design to finalize our device for their sustained use. We also conducted a brief needs assessment to plan for other assistive devices and solutions that our team can develop in the future.
Our Team
CSF Global at EDR 2024