Upper East Side teenager starts nonprofit to ship life-saving equipment to Nigeria for preemies
UPPER EAST SIDE (WABC) -- An Upper East Side teenager with a huge heart and wisdom beyond her years is helping preemies thousands of miles away.
Eden Jarrett was a preemie, and now, at 16 years old, she has started a nonprofit to help other preemies.
Jarrett weighed less than 2 pounds when she was born at 29 weeks.
She spent 11 weeks in the NICU.
"These people are amazing. I think they do so much good and I think something special about neonatology is that you're caring for the baby, but you're also caring for the parent. These doctors had such kind hearts," Jarrett said.
From that vulnerable beginning to now, a healthy 16-year-old, Eden started a nonprofit called Tiny Fighters Africa. She raised $11,000 to buy and ship critical neonatal equipment to Nigeria.
She has sent an incubator, therapy machine, syringe pump, resuscitator and an oxygen concentration," Jarrett said.
Sub-Saharan Africa has the worst mortality rate for premature infants.
Eden believes every child, regardless of where they are born, deserves the chance to thrive.
"We have a high number of premature babies here. I mean, basically sometimes we put 2 babies in an incubator just to make sure we are trying to save lives," Dr. Femi Omololu of Largos Island Maternity Hospital said.
The high school junior from the Upper East Side also spent 6 weeks this summer shadowing at the very hospital where she was born.
Some of the same doctors who saved her life are still working at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell.
"It's so crazy. They're such heroes. I was getting to watch the fellows do a simulation of intubating. And then the entire time, she would go to each fellow and she would be like, 'Oh, I intubated her," Jarrett said.
Jarrett is now trying to raise even more money for another shipment of equipment to Africa.
Long term, she hopes to become a doctor so she can help the next generation of premature babies.
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