11-year-old in need of $4.5M for urgent life-changing surgery in India

By Lakhram Bhagairat

For 11-year-old Shakira Peters, of Linden, growing up is not as fun as it is supposed to be. For her every day is a struggle, a struggle to wake up, a struggle to smile, a struggle to move, a struggle to play. She has been diagnosed with sickle cell anaemia since she was two years old and has always been in and out of the hospital.
Since being diagnosed, Shakira has suffered two major strokes and is now wheelchair bound. She is in constant pain and for the past two years, her mother, Nicola Peters, has been working tirelessly, pleading with corporate Guyana and private citizens to help get Shakira to India for an emergency bone marrow transplant.
Shakira’s eldest sister has been identified as the donor and the trio would require approximately $10 million to travel to India to have the surgery conducted at the Artemis Health Institute. They are expected to stay there for approximately six to eight weeks.
Peters told Guyana Times that she began raising money since June 2016 and thus far has been able to raise over $5.5 million inclusive of $3 million donated by the Public Health Ministry. The distressed woman said that after the surgery, her daughter would be able to walk again and to lead a normal life.
She noted that her eldest daughter, the donor, was 14 years old and was a student of the Linden Special School since she has poor muscle strength. Peters said that she was unable to work since daycare centres refuse to take Shakira because of her fragility.
Thus far, TravelSpan have donated three airline tickets for the trio to fly to New York and they would be required to pay US$3100 for a flight from New York to India.
Peters explained that they were expected to leave for India by the end of the first week in March, but she was actively trying to raise the funds to pay for their tickets. The trio was scheduled to leave for India in August of last year, but the lack of finances prevented that.
“I went into the interior and I worked a little and I had some donation boxes at various places. So far, we have been receiving some donations from companies and people and I have been trying to work and get too,” she related.
Peters said Shakira did not leave for surgery this time around, she was afraid of what would happen. She explained that her child’s condition continued to worsen and she has moved from requiring blood once every two months to twice per month. The worried mother also indicated that her daughter required O+ blood, which was hard to source.
The family would host regular blood drives so that they could source the requisite amount of blood for Shakira’s survival.
Persons willing to make a donation can do so by making a deposit to Republic Bank account 7660129 or contact Nicola Peters on 444-8420 or 684-7683.