Resounding Joy Healing Hearts with Music
Cambodia Outreach at Angkor Hospital for Children»

October 22 through October 31, 2008
Purpose: pre- and post-operative therapy to 20 pediatric heart surgery patients

Noelle Pederson, Resounding Joy Director of Education and Training, and Alex Bashor, Director of Healing Sounds Music Therapy in Los Angeles, accompanied and assisted an 11-member team of San Diego cardiac surgeons, nurses, and surgical staff who performed 20 operations on children with heart defects during a 10-day pro bono medical mission at Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia. Each music therapist donated nearly 60 hours of services, including direct patient contact, documentation, audio/video recording, planning, and consultation with cardiac team and Angkor Hospital for Children staff. 

Variety Children's Lifeline, a Solana Beach non-profit organization that provides medical help to children with treatable heart conditions in developing countries, sponsored the physicians' portion of the outreach. Leading the medical team from Rady Children's Hospital and UCSD was cardiologist Dr. Paul Grossfeld, a strong believer in the power of music therapy.

Healing Hearts with Music is the first international outreach developed by Resounding Joy, Inc. Private funding permitted the two board-certified music therapists to provide both pre- and post-operative music therapy techniques to reduce anxiety and pain experienced by the Cambodian children undergoing the cardiac surgeries.

Deeply moved by the children he met during a series of photographic trips to the Angkor monuments of Cambodia, internationally acclaimed photographer Kenro Izu founded the Angkor Hospital for Children to help children who were ill, underfed, and disfigured from land mines remaining behind the horrific Khmer Rouge regime. In 1995, Izu created Friends Without a Border and launched a fundraising effort to build a pediatric hospital in Siem Reap. In 1999, Angkor Hospital for Children opened its doors and began providing free medical care to the children of Cambodia.

Years of civil war and foreign occupation have left Cambodia one of the world's poorest countries. Approximately 34% of the Cambodian population survives on less than $1US per day, and 51% of all Cambodian children suffer from malnutrition, killing one in seven before age five. These tragically high childhood mortality rates have preventable causes: poverty, unsafe water, and inadequate sanitation.