Niek Nathan – Year 9

Be The Change and Save a Child’s Heart

During our Be The Change Jewish Studies class, we were honoured to have the opportunity to be visited by Doron Lazarus and to hear about Save a Child’s Heart and the work they do.

Save a Child’s Heart is an Israeli organisation that focuses on giving urgent paediatric cardiac care to children who don’t have access to this type of medical health. This could be due to financial reasons or that the care is not available in their country. They do this by providing heart screening facilities around the world, and then sending any child with heart complications that needs surgery to Israel, where they receive medical attention all free of charge. It is amazing to see how many individuals are taking part in this cause, which has already saved over 6,000 children and screened over 9,500.

Save a Child’s Heart also teaches people from countries with minimal paediatric cardiac care how to be a paediatric cardiac doctor or surgeon, and with this knowledge they can start helping children in their own countries and training others.

Hearing this presentation showed us how lucky we are in Australia, where we have hundreds of heart surgeons, whereas developing countries in Africa might only have one surgeon or none at all.

Tzedakah and giving back to the community plays a major role in Save a Child’s Heart, as all the doctors working there are all volunteers who volunteer between their usual jobs to provide care to the less fortunate. During the session, we learnt about hope, and how we should strive for a healthier world where we look out for people who are less fortunate than us.

By Niek Nathan (Year 9 Changemaker)