One woman’s calling to serve needy children

Teresa Njeru with some of the children she cares for.

Talk of amazing grace and that would be the best way to describe Teresia Njeru, an unmarried woman in her early 30s who has sacrificed everything in her life to give children with cerebral palsy and profound mental disability a home, and love.

While many of her peers would be thinking of their careers, marriage and children, Teresia has dedicated her life to children who can barely understand the magnitude of her devotion.

“No amount of money can buy this service,” she says. “It is the best gift God can give to anyone.”

In the heart of Nairobi’s Kasarani area, Teresia has rented a home where she hosts over twenty-eight children with severe neurological disorders and physical disability.

Though most of them are completely oblivious of the surrounding, her presence in the room brings pleasant excitement from those who can see her.

With flapping and noises, the children seem eager to narrate the day’s events to her.

Without children of her own, Teresia refers to herself as a proud mother of many.

A trained special needs teacher from Special Education and Professional Studies College, she has declined several offers to teach in special schools stating that what the children need most is not school education but love and a home.

“These children have no friends and even their relations do not want to be seen with them in public,” she says, and adds that it took her great efforts and courage to start up the Total Rehab Centre for Disabled Children.

The three-year old centre is registered as a Community-based Organisation. Through advocacy campaigns, it hosts children from all over the country.

The sixth child in a family of ten, Teresia’s love for disadvantaged children dates from when she was at Gatondo Primary School in Rupingazi village, in Embu County.

Financially stable

“I would join the nuns from Don Bosco Catholic Church to visit the visually disabled and hearing impaired children in various schools,” she recalls, adding that she made up her mind that upon completion of her schooling at Don Bosco Girls High School, she would work with such children.

But young Teresia, then, did not know that there were more severe disabilities than what she used to see.

Today, as she watches parents bringing their disabled children to the home, she can only smile back at her achieved dream of being there for those children society deems unfit.

Born in a relatively financially stable family, her parents had greater career-expectations for her.

Thus, when she came up with the idea of working specifically for mentally challenged children and those with cerebral palsy, her family thought she had gone out of her mind.

“But I had done my research and established the stigma, sexual molestation and other abuses directed at such children. This broke my heart and I decided to support them,” she asserts.

When her family saw her determination and passion, they supported her and today, they provide the children with food and other necessities.

Bringing up a mentally challenged child is very expensive and since Teresia does not have a stable source of income, she relies on well-wishers, the community and churches.

She understands that there are mentally disabled children who are hidden by embarrassed parents and though there is plenty of food, house helps never give them.

“While it is very expensive to hire a nanny for such a child, those who accept such work must have basic training on how to handle them, and must have the passion too,” she advises.

Together with other four dedicated workers, Teresia welcomes to the home parents who cannot handle their disabled children.

They contribute whatever they can to support their children and even others too when they can.

She reiterates that there is nothing embarrassing in having a child with a disability and parents should love them equally.

“That makes it easier to educate them on natural and social issues and even to buy their trust,” she notes.

Teresia observes that most mothers who take their children to the centre are unmarried and she asks fathers not to abandon mentally-challenged children and their mothers.

The home requires sh 30,000 per month. The workers have farmed in the piece of land and get some of their food from it.

A well-wisher also donated a cow which gives them milk.TT

Some USIU students have also been giving them food and recently donated bedding for all the children.

Teresia states that her greatest joy comes from seeing the children happy and secure.

She however says that she is in need of more space to accommodate as many children as possible.

“Sometimes I cry when I have to send a parent back because of lack of space for a needy child,” she says.

Children who get better are returned to their parents to give room to others who need help “but I still visit them at home and spend time with them as often as I can.”

In five years, Teresia sees Total Rehab Centre for Disabled Children as a vibrant home with more volunteer workers to support the children.

She believes she can get married to a man who has a similar vision as hers and who is willing to love and support mentally challenged children.