Autumn 2004 Trip - Stories from the villages

Robina

Robina is a 9 year old girl. She lives with her mother, who is supported via the Granny project, and lives in Isingo Parish, Namwendwa. It was noticed that Robina was not using her left arm properly. Her mother said that it was a traumatic birth, so it was queried whether her arm had been dislocated during the birth. Money was given for her to go to hospital for assessment. The doctor suggested physiotherapy as he thought that she had been brought up to believe that she has a useless arm so therefore hadn’t used it properly. After discussing it with Mr Robert it was decided that she should come to Maria’s Care to board for one year. During that time she can be educated, loved and have some physiotherapy from the nurse. The physiotherapy will consist of some simple movements such as gripping and extending her arm to give her a greater range of movement. If there is no improvement with her arm then she will be referred to a specialist for an x-ray and some further treatment.

New Wheelchairs

A very generous donor from Rhyl empowered and mobilised 12 disabled rural people by supplying a total of 12 tricycles and wheelchairs. Charles (18) contracted polio at 4 years old. He is unable to stand and moved around by crawling on hands and knees in the dirt. He got the hang of his new tricycle straight away and first of all wanted to demonstrate it to his Ja Ja (granny). What a difference his tricycle has made to his quality of life: it has given him mobility and a previously undreamt of degree of independence.

Alex’s mud hut

The volunteers drove back along a track to Butabaala to help build a mud hut for Alex, who is living with his grandmother.
Barbara ,Clare, Ruth and Neil got stuck into constructing the house. They mingled the mud with their feet

Ruth’s New House

The volunteers also visited Ruth, a widow. She has 4 children and lives in small mud hut. She has only 1 child living with her at the moment, the other 3 are in Maria’s Care. The new house is starting to be constructed and when the house and pit latrine are constructed in 2 weeks time the other 3 children can join her. The cost for this was £700 for the house and £150 for the latrine, total £850.
The builder is paid a little money and Ruth watched him dig the first shovel full of earth for the foundations.