“The most painful part of my work is telling children like Fredson we do not have wheelchairs, then watching them crawl away – helplessly.” Wilson Isaac Tembo
I met a 9-year-old village boy who has a burning desire to be educated and crawls to school. Fredson Mtentha of Nkanda Village is the boy, and he has never walked. While some of us complain of worn out shoes, old-fashioned clothes, and boring channels on television, Fredson’s worries about how he can get to school. His burning desire propels him to crawl a 4-kilometer stretch of dusty road in order to reach school each day. Even though he tries in his classes, he lags far behind, and at the age of 9, Fredson remains in the first grade of a primary school. His case is a symbolic representation of many young boys and girls who are struggling with being unable to attend classes due to mobility issues and a lack of suitable wheelchairs.
At Namikango Mission each day is different from the others, and each day brings its own new challenges. Today I had to tell a 9-year-old boy that, at least for now, we do not have a wheelchair for him to go to school. It’s been a painful day.
Report by Wilson Isaac Tembo