Restoring Hope to Children Living with Disability

Cerinah was born pre-maturely at 07 months at her parents’ home in Mpongo, Mityana District and rushed to Mityana Hospital for management. As new parents, the wait to have Cerinah get out of hospital could never be more trying.

“After the two months in hospital, we began treating Cerinah like a normal baby, but she never developed at same speed as other children. At 04 months she couldn’t sit on laps, her neck was very weak. I knew there was a problem,” Beatrice narrates with despair.

“We were first informed that it was witchcraft, so we took her to shrines, but she never got better,” she says. “We tried pastors, sheikhs – everyone we were advised to see but her condition never improved. At two years, we gave up.”

People living with disabilities reached with rehabilitation support: 2872

Children living with disabilities supported to receive corrective support:  84 14

Cerinah’ s life changed after her parents interacted with Edrida a Village Health Team member working with, the Safe Motherhood and Child Disability Project supported by Mildmay Uganda in partnership with Mityana Hospital. Edrida provided psychosocial support to the young parents and later referred them to Mityana Hospital for further management.

“At the hospital, we received more psychosocial support and also given supporting devices like sitting frames that have since then facilitated her sitting and standing postures and relieved her from sleeping all the time. We were also taught to exercise her limbs to make them active.” Beatrice says there has been great improvement with Cerinah’ s growth:”

In this journey, Cerinah’ s parents are thankful to the Safe Motherhood and Child Disability project and particularly the local village health team member who has provided continued support.

Cerinah is one of the in every 10 children who are born with a disability in Uganda (Uganda Functional Difficulties Survey (UFDS 2016). Many times, the knowledge gap in detecting and managing child defects in societies means that the situation of hundreds of children worsens because their caregivers are not well equipped with knowledge on how to identify defects at an early stage. The Safe Motherhood and Child Disability project seeks to address this gap by training health workers to identify and manage child defects at birth; and equipping Village Health Teams with skills to identify children with disabilities in societies and refer them for care at hospitals and other centres of excellence like Katalemwa and CORSU Rehabilitation Hospitals for correction.