Hope for children with disabilities
Wellington Longwe was nine months old in 2020 when hot water scalded his right hand.
On the fateful day, his mother Mercy Nyirenda, from Katangalika Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Kampingo Sibande in Mzimba District, left him on the verandah near a fireplace.
“As fate would have it, Wellington crawled to the fireplace to open a lid on the pot. The pot tumbled over, spilling the hot water onto his hand. His piercing cry greeted my ears inside the house and I rushed outside immediately,” she explains.
Yet, despite her child getting injured, she did not tell her husband who was away for piecework as she feared that he could react negatively.
Explains Nyirenda: “We tried visiting hospitals for assistance but we could not get any help. My son’s hand had paralysed. However, it was when he was four in January this year that lady luck smiled at us.
“That day, St. John of God officials visited Kasambankholi Community-Based Child Care Centre where my child is learning and saw my son struggling to use his hand.”
St. John of God, which is running an Inclusive Early Childhood Care Development Programme in the district with funding from Save the Children, facilitated Wellington’s surgery at Beit Cure International Hospital in Blantyre.
He is now cured and can use the hand.
But Wellington is not the only one who benefitted from the programme as three-year-old Rachel Banda, from Chavunama Banda Village, T/A M’Mbelwa, is now cured of her spina bifida and mild hydrocephalus problem.
Her mother, Alice Banda, narrates that she lost hope that her daughter would one day stand up and walk.
She explains: “My daughter was born with spina bifida and mild hydrocephalus that affected her locomotive system; hence, she was just sleeping.
“However, through Inclusive Early Childhood Development [ECD] Programme, I was introduced to experts who healed my daughter.”
Both Nyirenda and Banda encourage parents whose children have physical disabilities to show love and seek help in addition to sending them to ECD centres.
Under the 2017 Malawi National Policy on Early Childhood Education, all children are expected to access early learning.
St. John of God Hospitaller Services project coordinator Byson Chidzaro says the project has three components, namely nutrition, case management and early childhood development.
He explains: “Our main focus is that children who are in Mzimba South, whether they have disabilities or are infected or affected by HIV, but also are probably coming from ultra-poor households, should have access to ECD services.
“So, we are providing counselling sessions to caregivers and parents of children with disabilities. We also provide physiotherapy clinics and these clinics are community-based where we engage technicians from the Ministry of Health and from St John of God.”
Malawi Council for Disability Affairs (Macoha) rehabilitation officer responsible for Mzimba District Mary Zefaniya says Norwegian Association of the Disabled (NAD) conducted an assessment in T/As Mtwalo, M’Mbelwa and Mabilabo which established that there are 4 447 people with disabilities.
He explains: “Our involvement in the project is because it is targeting children with disabilities.
“We are helping them in mobilising children with disabilities to attend ECD classes.”
Save the Children Inclusive Early Childhood Development Programme project coordinator for Mzimba District Zindaba Lungu says unlike the previous two phases, this phase was focusing on three objectives, namely to empower people to take care of children with disabilities at community, district and national levels.
“We are also looking at delivering integrated case management in various communities and we want to ensure that we are delivering the nutrition component under the project,” he explains.
