Essential Aids Improve Children’s Lives

Parents of children with disabilities, living in poverty, often find it difficult to access essential aids to improve children’s lives. Our Disability Community Outreach project, in Soroti, is working for change.  

*Daisy’s story

Ten-year-old *Daisy was born with only one leg and struggles to talk, as she was also born with a malformed jaw, cleft palate and other difficulties. Doctors warned that she may not survive, but this little fighter and her family didn’t give up.

Fast-forward several years and several operations later and Daisy is growing healthy and strong – but life was still a challenge, especially at school. Daisy didn’t like school. Without transport, her mother carried her there and she always arrived late. Then she never knew when someone would be back to collect her. She was also stigmatised and bullied – her classmates said she was cursed and asked her where she buried her leg.

Then the family met Salume, Global Care’s Disability Community Outreach Officer (DCOO), based near their home in Soroti, Uganda. After assessment, Daisy was provided with crutches. Immediately, she could move more easily and use the toilet independently. Daisy and her family also received counselling, lessons in sign language and were taught home physiotherapy activities. Now Daisy’s parents have joined a local Disability Support Group, where they meet other families affected by disability and can work together for better services and offer peer support.

All these interventions helped to change Daisy’s life. Now she travels to and from school independently, attends regularly and, best of all, she can join in more activities. When Daisy met Global Care’s Head of Operations, Steve Wicking, in late 2023, she told him that with her crutches she can join in sports and even run really fast! She is so much happier.

*James’ story

Fourteen-year-old James is the youngest of eight children. He has cerebral palsy, has never gone to school and lived an isolated life, largely confined to the family’s hut. If he needed to go anywhere, he had to be carried, and as he got older and heavier this became more and more of a struggle.

Thanks to the gift of a wheelchair from the DCO project, his horizons have opened up. Now, for the first time in years, he can easily visit with neighbours, go to church and fully participate in family and community life.

“As a family they appreciate the project for rescue and acceptance,” say our team. “Thank you for the hope the project brought to them.”

Essential aids improve children’s lives! Last year, the DCOO gave aids including wheelchairs, crutches, walking frames, white canes, specialist seating and incontinence pads to 30 children with disability. Huge thanks go to the Christadelphian Meal A Day Fund whose grant covered the costs of all the equipment supplied last year.

*Children’s names have been changed to protect their identity