Volunteer puts smiles on faces of children living with disabilities

Nyeri, Kenya: It is a chilly morning in Nyeri town and seven women make their way to Metropolitan Sanctuary for Sick Children.

The women, each with a child strapped to her back, are chatting happily despite the morning breeze as they take the children to the centre for physiotherapy sessions.

But the trip to the facility is not just for the physiotherapy sessions alone, the women also work at the Sanctuary’s workshop where they build chairs for children with various disabilities.

The workshop  was started by Jolene Allen, an occupational therapist from Northern Ireland, in 2010.

“The centre was established in 2007 through contributions by well-wishers from the church I used to attend back in Ireland,” Ms Allen explained

Allen says she came up with the idea of building the chairs after realising that children with various disabilities were often left to lie on mattresses in their homes or hidden by their families.

Specialised seats

She says she had also noticed that most of the parents could not affords specialised seats and standing frames for their physically challenged children.

“Putting a child, who has physical disability, in a lying position for their whole day is bad for his or her posture. It also makes it impossible for them to socialise with the rest of the family,” she noted, adding that the lying position causes further deformity in the child.

The volunteer health worker reveals that they use Assistive Paper Technology to make the seats and frames for the children.

“We take measurements for each child before deciding if they need a frame or a seat. We then get old cartons, newspapers and adhesive (made from wheat flour and water) and fashion them into the seats or frames,” she said.

She says all the employed at the centre to assemble the chairs and frames are women whose children have disabilities.

Allen describes the seats are very cost effective and environmentally friendly as no wood is used.

Sabina Wambugu, whose daughter has cerebral palsy and whose has been working at the centre since 2012, says she has benefitted a lot from the centre

“I used to leave my child on the mattress while doing household chores. It was also hard to get a job because I had to take her with me everywhere I went,”  she explained.

Allen says they have assembled over 450 seats since 2010 and people  come for them from as far as Nakuru.