February 14 is the International Day of Congenital Heart Disease and the Menudos Corazones Foundation launch the campaign Mobilize your heart: 14F which promotes initiatives that remind patients and their families. Thus in the hospitals October 12, La Paz, Gregorio Marañón and Ramón y Cajal de Madrid, the Foundation distributes gifts to children and young people admitted. The distribution has been possible thanks to the donation, by Muprespa Fraternity, of a check redeemable for toys. The mutual employees themselves have distributed gifts to hospitalized children and youth, accompanied by volunteers and members of the Foundation team.
Congenital heart disease is a heart defect that affects eight out of every thousand children born alive worldwide. In Spain approximately every year are born 4,000 children with a heart injury. Fortunately, medical advances have achieved that, at present, 85% of these children reach adulthood thanks to prenatal diagnosis and subsequent treatments that are becoming more precise and less aggressive. In the 80s sadly the survival figure was only 20%.
Amaya Sáez is the director of the Menudos Corazones Foundation and has been working for a decade to improve the quality of life of these children and their families. Amaya has commented that “celebrating February 14, International Day of Congenital Heart Disease, means recognition to patients and their families, because there are still many problems that people with congenital heart disease face every day, hence the importance to raise awareness in society ”.
Under the motto Mobilize your heart: 14F initiatives promoted by members of the Foundation and their families, volunteers and collaborating entities are developed in different parts of Spain. The planned activities range from awareness talks in educational or work centers up to wear the foundation shirt, going through the dissemination of testimonials of affected people or the organization of beneficial acts.
In addition, the IKEA Group participates for the third year with the Menudos Corazones Foundation through the beginning of the solidarity campaign 1 menu, 1 smile, which will be held in all IKEA Group stores in Spain until next August 31. By each children's menu healthy sold in its restaurants, IKEA will allocate 1 euro to the Foundation to improve the quality of life of children and young people suffering from heart disease and that of their families.
We remember that the Menudos Corazones Foundation It is a non-profit organization, whose objective is to facilitate the integral development and improvement of the quality of life of children and young people with heart disease, as well as that of their families. In this sense, the Menudos Corazones Foundation offers families different assistance programs to support and accompany them when they have a child with heart disease. It develops programs such as personalized and free psychological care, accompaniment and recreational-educational activities in hospitals, summer camps for children and adolescents with heart disease, free accommodation for families with children with heart disease who have to travel to Madrid for medical reasons and the publication of a magazine, guides, brochures and other useful information materials for those affected and their families, among others.
