14-year-old *Bale lives with six siblings and his parents in a grass-thatched hut, in a village near Soroti, Uganda. Bale has sickle cell disease and has been unable to walk due to joint swellings since the age of six.
His parents are subsistence farmers with very little income. Before Global Care’s local partners intervened, Bale was confined to his home, lying on the floor. His family carried him on their backs to move him, but this became more and more difficult as he grew older.
Global Care’s local disability project provided Bale with a wheelchair, which has transformed his quality of life. Now he can leave the family compound and has even been able to return to school. In turn, this means his parents have been able to take on more work, as they no longer have to supervise him at home, and the family’s finances have improved. Just look at his smile!
Our Disability Community Outreach Officer (DCOO) also arranged for Bale to receive medication for his underlying condition via a local healthcare centre, and to have a physiotherapy assessment. Bale’s family now know how to carry out exercises with him every day, improving his strength and joint mobility.
Finally, Bale’s family was connected to a local Disability Support Group, founded by Global Care but run by local families affected by disability. Being connected to other families in a similar position reduces isolation and offers peer support and encouragement, as well as opportunities for networking and lobbying for improved services.
Global Care’s Disability Community Outreach project in Soroti helps around 140 children like Bale each year. We identify children with disabilities who are isolated from the wider community and other forms of support, and help connect them to existing services as well as providing aids, equipment and medical assessment and treatment where appropriate.
It’s a relatively low-cost, high-impact initiative which is sustainable over the long term. When a child needs ongoing support beyond what the DCO can offer, we are able to refer them to our child sponsorship programme, which is well-established in the Soroti area.
Can you help other children like Bale? Our Disability Action programme meets one off needs, like making classrooms accessible, while the Disability Community Outreach project works directly with individual children. None of this life-changing work would be possible without donations from people like you.
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Children's names are changed and their photographs obscured for reasons of protection.