Vic Ferguson

Kids in Desperate Situations (KIDS)

Mission Statement 

“Kids in Desperate Situations (KIDS) is a Sarajevo-based mission of local and international volunteers connected by their interest in helping children affected by war.  These children have urgent medical, educational or material needs which remain unmet by the international community and are outside the sphere of local humanitarian activities”.

KIDS principle aim is to continue raising funds for, and rendering assistance to, individual children whose lives can be saved by prompt medical evacuation and treatment.

In addition to medical evacuations KIDS undertakes such projects as repairing facilities for children, obtaining equipment for kindergartens, schools and orphanages, distributing clothes, toys and other materials.  KIDS is also running projects to procure computers and educational equipment for international child-to-child E-mail communication.  Together with gifts of material and educational aid these projects are implemented in schools and institutions which lie outside the usual aid circuits.

In March 1996, sufficient funds had been raised to enable our first evacuation to take place, that of  Hurmija Mujic.  Hurmija is a 12 year old girl from Srebrenica who was paralysed by shell fragments near her home whilst playing with her sister.  Her father and two older brothers were killed in the war.  She was befriended by Staff Sergeant Vic Ferguson, when he met her in Sarajevo’s Kosevo hospital in November 1995.  She had been there for almost two years.  Hurmija received first-rate rehabilitation and counseling at the spinal unit the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt hospital in Oswestry and returned to Sarajevo in July 1996 able to walk unaided by using her gait orthosis.  This was never possible in Bosnia.  Since returning home Hurmija has not spent a single day in hospital and is now able to share much more of her families lives.

In August 1996 Medina Hukic, a two year old girl from Zenica, was evacuated to the Priory hospital in Birmingham where she received life-saving surgery for congenital heart disease.  She returned to Bosnia in September 1996 fit, well and able to look forward to a life she may not have had if left untreated.

We need the continuing support of military units, individual servicemen/women and their familes, churches, pubs, clubs and anyone who wishes to give help to the innocent child-victims of war.

Donations to:

TSB

58 Station Road

Crossgates

LEEDS

LS157YJ

Sort code:  771407

Account number:  19180060

Cheques payable to:

“Kids in Desperate Situations”

Contact numbers for KIDS volunteers are:

Vic Ferguson (Director) on:

+49 172 2327991

or

Marina & Armin (Sarajevo office) on:

+387 71 443233

Support  ‘KIDS’

(Kids in Desperate Situations)

“a grass-roots organisation working with children

in the aftermath of war”

4 year old Sanjin and his mother from Gorazde.

Sanjin is dying from Leukaemia

Kids is a Sarajevo-based Non-Governmental Organisation of international volunteers connected by their interest in helping children in the aftermath of war.  Our projects include raising funds to evacuate children from war zones world-wide for treatment unavailable in their own countries.  KIDS was founded by Staff Sergeant Vic Ferguson and his wife Amanda after Vic had worked with children in Bosnia.

Volunteers are wanted, in ANY capacity; we need particularly individuals, units, schools or clubs to raise funds to continue our projects.  Your support can help to save the lives of the innocent child-victims of war. 

Contact:  Vic  Ferguson on  DSN 634-2809, or 0335 381524 (Mobile).

Cheques can also be sent direct to:  TSB, 58 Station Road, Crossgates, LEEDS, LS15 7YJ.  Payable to V A FERGUSON “KIDS”.

These desperately sick children appreciate your help!

From:  Warrant Officer Class 2 V A Ferguson

Superintending Clerk

Coalition Press Information Centre

Holiday Inn, Sarajevo

British Forces Post Office 543

Tel:  (00387) 71 447-617

Fax:  (00387) 71 447-600

Hurmija/96/Evac

Jeanette Covington

61a Tytherton Road

Tufnell Park

LONDON N19 4PZ                                                                                       April 1996

Thank you for your most kind letter of  21st March.  I am just getting round to replying after taking two weeks leave with my family in Germany; my first break since November 1995!

I was absolutely shattered, both physically and emotionally, after the evacuation.  But for me it was the realisation of a dream that I had spent 5 months in trying to make come true.

You mentioned that you would like to do more on Bosnian children.  I am leaving Bosnia in the near future, probably in the next couple of weeks, and will return in late September.  I am still, however, continuing to help where I can before I depart.  I continue to receive and distribute large amounts of humanitarian aid and will be taking some soldiers to a local kindergarten, school and the Kosevo hospital this Friday, the 19th April.

You have to be here in Bosnia to feel the real measure of the suffering that has been caused by this terrible war.  Of course, the children, on all sides, are the innocent victims.

Towards the end of this month I will be helping Professor David Southall of Child Advocacy International to evacuate a further two children for treatment in the UK, I have full details on one of them if you are interested.

As far as the children that we evacuated in March are concerned, everything went extremely well.  Hurmija has walked with the aid of her Gait Orthosis, a medical device to assist to straighten her spine.  Adnan, the 16 month old, and Elvis the 14 year old, have both undergone surgery and I am told that all went very well.  Unfortunately Ivo, the 7 year old suffering from Epilepsy could not be helped and has returned to Bosnia.  The others should all return some time in the next three or four weeks.

I have also made contact with the Red Cross and am trying to help the older brother and sister of Hurmija, who are still here in Sarajevo, to trace their father and two brothers who have been missing since the fall of Srebrenica last summer.  I do not think that there is much hope that they will be alive, but at least the family can be sure of their fate if the Red Cross manage to turn up any information.

Please call me if you feel that you can help in any way, if not, it would be nice to speak to you again.  Whatever happens, I am grateful for your support in bringing public attention to the plight of these poor children.