Makuyu mothers struggle with disability plight

Mother with disabled child            PHOTO: COURTESY

By Stephen Makabila 

Makuyu, Kenya: Jane Wanjiku stares through her daughter Pauline Njeri, who is resting on a mat next to her under a tree.

They have been under the tree for a while, mother spoon-feeding the daughter and hoping the latter falls asleep soon. Wanjiku has not fetched water from the distant river and soon it will be too late for her to leave.

We are in Gathenya village in Makuyu Division of Murang’a County where the 44-year-old single mother of six has lived since she was married. She is home alone with Njeri, 8, as her other five children have been in school all day.

Njeri, the last born, was born with a spinal cord problem.

Wanjiku looks tortured by life, after being left to fend for her childrenby her husband of over 20 years, who abandoned the family because of  Njeri’s condition.

Community segregation

“Since I gave birth to Njeri, life for me has changed. I hardly find time to even step out and look for small jobs for our upkeep because the girl needs my attention all the time,” Wanjiku tells The Standard on Sunday.

“My husband abandoned us when I gave birth to Njeri and now I am the sole bread winner and life has not been easy. She was born like any other normal child but after eight months, her neck and legs became weak and when I took her to hospital at Maragua, doctors told me it was a spine-related disease”.

In Thangira village a few kilometres away, we find Elizabeth Wanjiru, 43. She fights back tears as she narrates how their lives have also changed in the last 15 years.

Wanjiru’s 15-year-old son George Murigi is physically challenged, and can neither stand, walk nor sit.

Wanjiku and Wanjiru represent scores of parents in Makuyu whose lives have taken a beating because of their handicapped children.

Lower paralysis

The Standard on Sunday visited several families in the area, all with similar tales that mirror the suffering that torment them in this poverty-ridden part of Murang’a County.

The Director of Hope Foundation, a local organisation involved in care of orphans and the physically challenged, says it has so far recorded over 200 cases of families with physically challenged children around Makuyu.

“Of these cases, we have 60 single mothers whose husbands abandoned them due to the condition of their children,” says Hope Director Alejandro Wanjau.

He says people with special needs often feel left out in many ways and are often stigmatised. Some communities segregate such children, mostly viewed as bad omen or results of witchcraft.

“Most of these families hide such members out of shame or to protect them from stigma. We have rescued more than 200 children with disability, and who are always locked in the houses, by providing medication, food and clothing. Currently, we take care of them from their homes and train parents or guardians on how to take care of the children,” said Wanjau.

In Ciumba village, not far from Gathenya, Ann Njoki, 40, has cared for her 22-year-old physically challenged daughter Lucy Wanjiru.

“She has never sat or walked since she was born through a caesarean operation at Nakuru District Hospital. She was weak right from delivery and doctors told me she had weak joints, which they later described as lower paralysis,” says Njoki. A first-born in the family, Lucy, who weighs 30kg at her age, can speak and hear, but does not walk or sit.

“Lucy’s followers are boys, but last year was tragic for us, because the younger boy aged seven died in a road accident, leaving the second born, aged 13,” says Njoki, with a trembling voice, demonstrating her bitterness with how life has gone awfully wrong in the family. Back to Gathenya village again, 24-year-old Catherine Waithera has a three and-a half-year-old son. He is called Dennis Guchu.

He, too, is physically challenged.

“It was unusual because the baby did not cry at delivery as should be the case. I delivered at Makuyu Health Centre and doctors told me the baby had a spinal disease. I was referred to Thika District Hospital and later Kenyatta National Hospital where I could not raise Sh10,000 deposit for an operation,” says Waithera.

Waithera was eventually lucky after her second born boy was later operated on at Kijabe Mission Hospital.

Though the boy can speak, sit and crawl, he cannot stand upright and has problems eating and answering to calls of nature.

“He urinates continuously, there are no breaks. But I thank God that at least he is mentally sound. I hope he will enroll in school soon,” adds Waithera, who is lucky to still be with her husband Joseph Njoroge, 28.

Gathenya village’s Wanjiku says her daughter has problems eating and that she takes well over two hours eating a single meal. “My husband ran away and I now occasionally depend on Hope Foundation for help. My house had even collapsed and they helped me with materials to build the one we are using today,”

Child abuse

Some of the items the family receives from the organisation, she says, are food, soap and clothes.

“I had hope in my first born son Francis Kibe who completed Form Four at Don-Bosco Secondary school in Makuyu two years ago. But we have no funds to secure a college training for him, and he is yet to land any employment to support us,” added Wanjiku.

Wanjiru says her son only weighs 12kg at 15 years, and that apart from suffering from cerebral palsy, he is blind. “When I started taking him to clinic after six weeks, doctors told me he could not see. He cannot sit and his growth has stagnated. He has digestive problems and has to be fed on soft foods like milk, which are expensive,” added Wanjiru.

Wanjiru’s husband Charles Kamau has no permanent job and only depends on casual work to provide for the family.

“For the last three years, Hope Foundation has come in to help us at times with food, clothes and some little cash, but it is not enough because we spread the little assistance we receive to cover the entire family,” says Wanjiru, whose first-born son is in Form Three at Gathungururu Secondary School.

Wanjau says the foundation plans to build a rescue centre that will take care of children with severe disabilities that come as a result of birth disorder, traumatic accidents, illness or child abuse.

“Our main project is to develop a rescue centre for physically challenged children and orphans at a cost of Sh30 million, but we are in the meantime involved in the provision of mobile clinics to bring services closer to them”.

Wanjau works with David Kamunde, Susan Mathenge and Salome Njambi. “Some of us are in professional employment but we try our best to put aside some time on humanitarian grounds,” Susan told The Standard on Sunday.

Medics in Murang’a link the high level of children born with disability to poverty, which has made access to pre- and post-natal clinics difficult. Some women have, as a result, delivered children at home.