Amina Ramadhani, sits in her little wheelchair, her face beaming with a smile after assistance reached her across a Swedish bridge to Tanzanian organization of Traced. The four-year old child cannot stand up because her legs are too weak.
The doctor told her mother Nuru Jumanne (26) that Amina’s legs do not have a kneecap. It is the kneecap that locks the leg in a straight up position.
But in her new possession – the wheelchair – given to her by Tanzania Resource and Assessment Centre for Children with Disabilities (Traced), Amina’s joy drove her to declare that her big work then would be to ‘ride the bicycle every day, all day’.
Of course the little girl also wanted her jaws to move with a delicacy. “I want biscuits,” she tells Annika Ekholm of the Swedish Human Bridge, a non-governmental organization that is a donor of the Traced in Europe.
As Amina tries her little wheelchair at the storehouse in Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School in Dar es Salaam, another child, Gadence Silvester, is busy banging away a text at a Braille typewriter in the classroom at the same school.
However, Lahula Mohamed, 4, donning a cap she has just received at the handouts presentation ceremony in Sinza in the city, sounds the happiest. “Yeah, man!” she observes as her mother Upendo Mussa looks on with a smile.
“That’s what she loves to say. She will say it again and again,” Ms Mussa explains. Lahula suffers from an abnormally big head that makes walking difficult for her.
The three children are part of the bigger community of Dar es Salaam children with disability under the care of Traced, a non-governmental organization that gives assistance to poor children with various forms of physical disabilities.
Traced gets support from, among other donors, Human Bridge of Sweden. On October 23, two members of Human Bridge, Helen Stenfelt and Annika Ekholm who had flown in the country to see beneficiaries of their organization, visited Uhuru Mchanganyiko and a couple of other places with disabled children and under the care of Traced in the city.
“We are impressed by what Traced is doing,” said Ms Ekholm. “The children seem happy. We shall do our best to keep on giving whatever assistance we can to give the children some relief.” But the work Traced is doing is huge and difficult.
There are many disabled children and those under the care of the organization need assistance after they grow up and move out of Traced guardianship. On that happy Sunday Traced presented the poor children in the city with clothes, shoes and wheelchairs. Some others, as far away in Pugu and Sinza in the city, received crutches.
At Traced head office in Sinza in the city on that momentous Sunday, Traced presented 20 wheelchairs to disabled children and handed out some clothes to many others. The mobility equipment was so good that Traced manager Ruth John Salehe said: “The equipment Human Bridge had provided for our disabled children is firmer and better in many ways.”
Human Bridge is committed to assist Traced to give the disabled children a happier future. “These crutches and wheelchairs have been used in Sweden, but we refurbish them, recondition them by buying new parts for the worn-out ones,” said Helen Stenfelf, assistant nurse with Human Bridge. Most important is that the assistance Human Bridge sends to Tanzania is having a profound change in the recipient country.
“The wheelchairs and crutches have enabled the children with huge, deformed heads to move around more and they can now mix with many more people easily,” Ms Salehe says.
The increased interaction of disabled children with others without physical disabilities has made them more acceptable to members of the society.
“It has made people accept them as people with only natural physical difference,” Ms Saleh explains. By extension, facilities for children with disabilities benefit also other members of the unfortunate family.
“The facilities affords us more time to engage in gainful economic activities while the disabled is having fun riding or pushed around in the wheelchair,” Ms Saleh explains. Most import is that the disabled can now appear in public more and smart.
The presentable appearance of children with physical disabilities, Ms Saleh says, has made people accept them as normal members of the society needing respect and not to be embarrassed about. “The children are in a clean state and move with the community lean,” she says.
“Their appearance in such a state has made people more sympathetic and more will to provide assistance for them.” "Effect of assistance fom the Swedish organization cannot be over-emphasized, says Traced Executive Secretary Ramadhani Mbonea.
"We have been able to provide assistance to many children with physical disabilities and other needy people because of support from Human Bridge,” says Mbonea.
But Tanzania has many children with disabilities. Given the abject poverty of the children’s parents, big and many challenges lie ahead. Ms Saleh says the country has many children with disabilities and who need similar assistance.
“Wheelchairs and crutches provided to physically disabled children have impressed adults with similar problems, but these people or their parents are too poor to maintain or repair the facilities,” Ms Salehe says. However, what children with disabilities need most is economic empowerment so that they can later be self-reliant.
“More wheelchairs, crutches and white sticks for the blind will provide more freedom of movement and participation in self-empowerment activities to create for them independence in the future,” Ms Saleh told the Human Bridge team.
The doctor told her mother Nuru Jumanne (26) that Amina’s legs do not have a kneecap. It is the kneecap that locks the leg in a straight up position.
But in her new possession – the wheelchair – given to her by Tanzania Resource and Assessment Centre for Children with Disabilities (Traced), Amina’s joy drove her to declare that her big work then would be to ‘ride the bicycle every day, all day’.
Of course the little girl also wanted her jaws to move with a delicacy. “I want biscuits,” she tells Annika Ekholm of the Swedish Human Bridge, a non-governmental organization that is a donor of the Traced in Europe.
As Amina tries her little wheelchair at the storehouse in Uhuru Mchanganyiko Primary School in Dar es Salaam, another child, Gadence Silvester, is busy banging away a text at a Braille typewriter in the classroom at the same school.
However, Lahula Mohamed, 4, donning a cap she has just received at the handouts presentation ceremony in Sinza in the city, sounds the happiest. “Yeah, man!” she observes as her mother Upendo Mussa looks on with a smile.
“That’s what she loves to say. She will say it again and again,” Ms Mussa explains. Lahula suffers from an abnormally big head that makes walking difficult for her.
The three children are part of the bigger community of Dar es Salaam children with disability under the care of Traced, a non-governmental organization that gives assistance to poor children with various forms of physical disabilities.
Traced gets support from, among other donors, Human Bridge of Sweden. On October 23, two members of Human Bridge, Helen Stenfelt and Annika Ekholm who had flown in the country to see beneficiaries of their organization, visited Uhuru Mchanganyiko and a couple of other places with disabled children and under the care of Traced in the city.
“We are impressed by what Traced is doing,” said Ms Ekholm. “The children seem happy. We shall do our best to keep on giving whatever assistance we can to give the children some relief.” But the work Traced is doing is huge and difficult.
There are many disabled children and those under the care of the organization need assistance after they grow up and move out of Traced guardianship. On that happy Sunday Traced presented the poor children in the city with clothes, shoes and wheelchairs. Some others, as far away in Pugu and Sinza in the city, received crutches.
At Traced head office in Sinza in the city on that momentous Sunday, Traced presented 20 wheelchairs to disabled children and handed out some clothes to many others. The mobility equipment was so good that Traced manager Ruth John Salehe said: “The equipment Human Bridge had provided for our disabled children is firmer and better in many ways.”
Human Bridge is committed to assist Traced to give the disabled children a happier future. “These crutches and wheelchairs have been used in Sweden, but we refurbish them, recondition them by buying new parts for the worn-out ones,” said Helen Stenfelf, assistant nurse with Human Bridge. Most important is that the assistance Human Bridge sends to Tanzania is having a profound change in the recipient country.
“The wheelchairs and crutches have enabled the children with huge, deformed heads to move around more and they can now mix with many more people easily,” Ms Salehe says.
The increased interaction of disabled children with others without physical disabilities has made them more acceptable to members of the society.
“It has made people accept them as people with only natural physical difference,” Ms Saleh explains. By extension, facilities for children with disabilities benefit also other members of the unfortunate family.
“The facilities affords us more time to engage in gainful economic activities while the disabled is having fun riding or pushed around in the wheelchair,” Ms Saleh explains. Most import is that the disabled can now appear in public more and smart.
The presentable appearance of children with physical disabilities, Ms Saleh says, has made people accept them as normal members of the society needing respect and not to be embarrassed about. “The children are in a clean state and move with the community lean,” she says.
“Their appearance in such a state has made people more sympathetic and more will to provide assistance for them.” "Effect of assistance fom the Swedish organization cannot be over-emphasized, says Traced Executive Secretary Ramadhani Mbonea.
"We have been able to provide assistance to many children with physical disabilities and other needy people because of support from Human Bridge,” says Mbonea.
But Tanzania has many children with disabilities. Given the abject poverty of the children’s parents, big and many challenges lie ahead. Ms Saleh says the country has many children with disabilities and who need similar assistance.
“Wheelchairs and crutches provided to physically disabled children have impressed adults with similar problems, but these people or their parents are too poor to maintain or repair the facilities,” Ms Salehe says. However, what children with disabilities need most is economic empowerment so that they can later be self-reliant.
“More wheelchairs, crutches and white sticks for the blind will provide more freedom of movement and participation in self-empowerment activities to create for them independence in the future,” Ms Saleh told the Human Bridge team.
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