A 13-year-old boy with a Facial Tumor

Habibu Ali Mohammed, the second of three children of his parents, is a 13-year-old boy born in Cape Coast with a medical condition known as Plexiform Neurofibromatosis (Facial Tumor). He started life as a normal child, living a very regular life as every other child in the community. Habibu started his primary education at Maranatha Preparatory School at Kyease in the KEEA district in the Central Region. As he got older, the tumors on his face became more prominent and his school mates and other children in the community started making fun at him and calling him all sorts of names. This affected his self-confidence and self-esteem as a growing child such that Habibu sadly had to cut his education short when he was only in class two because he could not stand the teasing and the humiliation from his peers anymore.

Habibu has stayed at home with his grandmother in the last six years doing absolutely nothing because his parents cannot afford private teachers to teach him at home. This has adversely affected Habibu immensely.

Richard Aryee-Hammond “a good Samaritan “who also lives and works in Cape Coast saw Habibu in his neighborhood, had a conversation with Habibu and his grandmother and he was touched by the plight of this young boy. He therefore decided to raise funds to help Habibu to get immediate medical attention plus possible surgery done to reconstruct his face and put him back in school. Richard has been able to get the University of Cape Coast to support this noble cause by writing a cheque of forty-eight thousand Ghana Cedis (GHS 48,000), which is the total cost of the four surgeries to be done, of which same has already been deposited with Korle Bu.

Habibu has since seen the consultant in Korle Bu for assessment and he will undergo four different surgeries in all to remove the tumors and reconstruct his face. However, this could be spread over a period of one year.

The first in the series of surgeries has already been done (on 4th October 2021), and Habibu has been discharged from hospital and is at home recovering. The consultant has given a period of three months to provide ample time to heal completely, and if he (the consultant) is satisfied with the healing process, then Habibu will go back for the second debulking surgery to be done. We look forward to having the second surgery done sometime in January 2022. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Habibu is a very intelligent boy who wants to go back to school, study hard and become a medical doctor. Let’s help Habibu regain his self-confidence, re-integrate him into society, and then he can go back to school to continue his education. God-willing, we will get a medical doctor who will also help other children in need.