“I had a business buying goats and selling goat meat. It was very successful, and I was able to have a good profit every day. I lacked nothing. Then one day as I walked home from a friend’s house a piece of wood broke the skin in my left ankle. Little did I know at that moment this was going to change everything about my life.” — Zephaniah Kolesi
Sankhani Village, Malawi … Thinking he had experienced a simple wound he walked on home. That night he had difficulty sleeping, as the pain continued to increase around the wound. The next morning Kolesi went to the hospital to have the medical people look at his foot. They removed the wood splinters that had caused the rapidly increasing inflammation, but they warned him some serious damage had been done to his foot and ankle. It would take a long time for the wound to completely heal, they said. That was five years ago, and Kolesi continues even to the present, to have difficulty walking on his left foot. The pain continues to restrict his movement, and this has curbed his business. He has difficulty walking and the pain continues to be so bad his business has suffered, and his life can only be described as miserable. He turned to the chief of his village for assistance, and the chief wrote a letter of request to the Director of Action for Progress. A positive response was immediate. Kolesi was given a pair of crutches that has helped him move about more freely.
“Upon receiving the crutches,” he said, “I can now move from place to place and restart my business of selling meat. I will be able to support myself because all I needed was to be able to move about.”
Kolesi’s story is one of literally thousands of stories about people who are benefiting from donated mobility devices. These success stories are the result of the work of Action for Progress, the Malawi Project, Mobility Ministries, and a number of churches and individual supporters.
Reported by Lezina Danken