Finding Charlies Voice

A little update and story about Finding Charlie's Voice.

Finding Charlies Voice is an Irish Registered Charity (CHY22899) that supports children and young adults with speech and language communication needs in Ireland.

The charity was inspired by Charlie, now 9, but born with Verbal Dyspraxia - a rare neurological speech sound disorder, impacting about 1:1000 children worldwide. For reasons unknown, the pathways between the brain and the mouth have not developed, which results in unintelligible speech. It is also known as Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Children with Verbal Dyspraxia have immense difficulty planning the precise movements necessary to produce speech. Those with verbal dyspraxia need to be taught the precise motor movements necessary to form sounds and words. They need to hear and say a single word over 1000 times before it becomes natural output, and so progress is slow and time spent in therapy is long - often years and years. Their speech cannot be corrected without intensive, early and frequent intervention from a qualified Speech and Language Therapist.

Every child deserves the right to reach their highest communication potential. Every child deserves the right to support and intervention and to participate meaningfully in society.

We believe that children should be seen AND heard. Communication is a basic human right, but it is also a privilege.

Current Fundraisers - Creation of Bursaries

2023 Virtual Run - being held from 14th May-21st May. Entry is via www.myrunresults.com. All entries go 100% to creating bursaries for families to access funds to pay for assessments/therapies. Enter here: https://www.njuko.net/finding_charlies_voice_2023/select_competition

Upcoming Fundraisers

Will will complete the half 2023 HALF IRONMAN CORK in Aug 2023 to ensure that we can increase our bursary funds and help as many families as we can. If you wish to get involved, or sponsor Will, please get in touch ([email redacted])

Past Fundraisers

Will (Daddy to Charlie), completed the 2022 IRONMAN CORK in a bid to raise much needed funds to support children and to continue our communication board initiative. This was a gruelling course covering a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride and finishing with a 42.2km run! Every stroke, pedal and footstep was made in Charlie's name and in the name of every single child out there that needed help and support and we vowed that until he could use his own voice, we needed to be his.

2022 Virtual Run was held from 13th-28th Feb 2022

2021 Virtual Run was held from 13th-29th February 2021

Here is a link to a recent article that we wrote about our journey so far;

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/our-son-charlie-is-five-but-he-cannot-say-his-name-1.3808530

You tube link of a little TV appearance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HksySkjJ2U

Thank you to those that continue to support us in our fight to find Charlie's voice and to ensure that the voices of all those children are also heard some day.

Evelyn

CEO & Chair, Finding Charlie's Voice