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In this area of the world, a high proportion of children are born with varying disabilities such as cleft lip and palates, clubbed feet, and bowed legs. Some disabilities can be attributed to poor nutrition and health particularly during pre-natal care, which is very basic and limited. Others result from medication given to mothers during their pregnancies. Disability is still seen as a curse in this area of the world. Infanticide is common, and disabled children who do survive but are unable to contribute to the family are recognised as a drain on resources, and are marginalized. Disabled children are especially vulnerable, making it therefore so very much more important to be able to provide mobility and other corrective surgeries to some of these children when it is possible.
Children play a very important role within the family. Everyone has a role and duties to perform to assist in the smooth running of the family. The majority of people in these communities rely heavily on small family owned farms (“shambas”) that provide staple foods for the family and possibly enough to sell on to provide a small income. Support invariably means being physically able and mobile to collect water from boreholes that can be anything up to 10 kilometres away from some homes. Meeting the water needs of a family and their shamba involves up to four trips a day to the borehole. Working the land manually is very physically demanding, particularly given the heat. Even cooking and cleaning the family home is laborious. Children are not sent to school because they are required to assist in and around the home.
AMREF Doctors
Even with free surgery, operations are still unaffordable for many rural families. A very small amount of funding can therefore dramatically and permanently improve children’s quality of life and life chances. The surgeon that Richard met on a number of occasions was Dr. Raassen. Originally from Holland, he had joint expertise in surgery and the issues facing Africans having spent 25 years living and working in this area of the world. Richard describes how Dr. Raassen would arrive in Mumias from Nairobi and go straight to the hospital to immediate assess the cases being presented to him. He would line up operation after operation and would spend the next 2-3 days with very little sleep or food breaks. Richard quickly tuned in to the kinds of operations that were possible and which had the highest success rates and impacts. Many sleepless nights were spent trying to decide who—out of all the children he had met during his visits—did and did not receive funding.
In addition to initiatives to correct for disabilities such as club foot, cleft palette, and amniotic band syndrome, the Trust has also organized the provision of wheelchairs, artificial limbs, and other “assistive” equipment. Goals of the Corrective Surgery Project To identify children whose quality of life will be dramatically improved through corrective surgery and fund costs relating to surgery and post-operative care. Operations are scheduled twice a year when the AMREF surgeon visits. To allow children with correctable disabilities to reach their full potential by going to school, being able to carry water, and play football and other games. Achievements to date Approximately 1,000 children have been reached through this programme. For some disabled people, providing them with a set of crutches has dramatically altered their functioning capacity and improved their quality of life. Twenty-five of the disabled children live in one of the small houses associated with the orphanage. One of the notable successes of this partnership has been helping six deaf children to lead independent lives as Fundis (tradespeople). They were employed in the Provincial Workshop, received training in metalwork and carpentry, and made many of the assistive devices such as walking frames for the disabled. Donating to Corrective Surgery If you would like to make a donation to Corrective Surgery or to the Akhonya Trust in general, please click below to be taken to the donations page.
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During his time in Kenya, Richard met lots of children who required more than assistance to access school. The quality of life of many children could be dramatically improved through simple operations. Through intensive research he identified an organisation that sent surgeons to local hospitals to carry out corrective surgeries and operations on people who would normally be unable to access medical care. Medical staff donated their time free of charge. The only costs were for supplies and hospital services incurred during the operation and recuperation. Through a small amount of funding donated by family and friends back in England, Richard and Amy identified a handful of the most desperate cases. Operations took place at St. Mary’s Hospital, a small facility located in Mumias. Originally founded by missionaries, the hospital was being ran by the Diocese and had links with a Dutch organisation that provided work placements for Dutch doctors and nurses.
Through networking, a charity named AMREF (
Getting each family to the hospital to visit the AMREF surgeon involved a “military-style” operation to ensure that each knew where they had to be and when and had resources to get them to hospital. While this sounds like a simple task to those from a western background, once politics, poverty, transport difficulties, the rural nature of the area and also the long distances that children were travelling were factored in, it became a nigh on impossible task, and most would give up. Through Richard and the teams’ determination, including Martin Wanzala and Amos Mtsotso, there were scenes of children with varying disabilities limping, being carried on the back of bikes, on people’s backs, and shuffling along the ground to get to the hospital. A doctor at the hospital is quoted as having said: “it looks like a biblical scene”. |
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