Disability in Uganda
Fear, lack of information and stigma around disabilities is very real in Uganda. Often, children don’t receive the treatment required due to lack of funds or knowledge to support them.
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Rwenzori Special Needs Foundation
This Lent, you can provide nutrition outcomes to the parents and children of RSNF.
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Poor diets in pregnant mothers can lead to developmental delays and disabilities in babies.
Over 10% of babies born in the Rwenzori region suffer from cleft lip and palate. It’s not easy for children born with stunted growth or cleft lip and palate to get medical treatment when they need it.
For these children and their families, life can be extremely difficult.
In 2010, a New Zealand special needs teacher called Dot Muir began RSNF in Uganda’s Fort Portal. Since then, RSNF have supported hundreds of children with physical and/or mental disabilities, providing surgeries and transportation, post-surgery care, vocational and education packages, and home-based support.
This Lent, your donation will go directly towards food and nutrition related outcomes. Access to high quality ingredients, supplements, clean water and hygienic facilities are all vital to setting up these children and families for success.
Cleft lip and infants
Cleft lip and palate can be fatal to infants in Uganda.
Cleft lip and palate is linked to a lack of folic acid (vitamin b) and iron in the diet of their mothers during pregnancy. Access to supplements is difficult in Uganda because of poverty and lack of access to health services (especially in rural areas). This makes cleft lip and palate potentially fatal to infants because it impacts their ability to feed.
Despite the Rwenzori region being one of Uganda’s “food baskets”, many pregnant mothers don’t have access to sufficient nutritional food. This is because of unregulated lands, tribal conflicts, and climate change. Because of this, many children born in this region experience stunted growth which can subsequently result in disability.
Sadly, many children with disabilities (especially in remote areas) are abandoned by their families.
How the Foundation is helping
Addressing inadequate maternal nutrition.
Supporting the day-to-day needs of these children is important. However, it’s vital to tackle the underlying cause of these challenges: inadequate maternal nutrition. RSNF’s Nutrition and Feeding Programme addresses this issue in multiple ways:
- Education on healthy eating
- Training families on sustainable agriculture and kitchen gardening practices
- Providing farm tools and nutritional seeds
- Supplying food relief to the most vulnerable
In addition to poor maternal diets, another contributing factor to childhood malnutrition and potential disability is the lack of awareness and training among mothers regarding breastfeeding. This project seeks to address this concern by raising awareness and providing essential training to mothers on effective breastfeeding practices and strategies. By addressing both poor maternal nutrition and breastfeeding challenges, RSNF aims to improve the overall health and well-being of mothers and their children, laying a stronger foundation for their future.
How you can support the foundation
Your giving can make a real difference, now!
RSNF and their small team have a lot of passion and persistence! The COVID-19 pandemic and climate change has increased pressure, as has the number of families and children that require support. They need to employ more social workers and special needs teachers, run more workshops, and distribute more food relief and seeds.
Your donation can help make all of this happen. Give and make a difference today.
Meet Kengonzi Regina.
Regina (far left) with her family.
She was not able to go to school because her family couldn’t afford the tuition and because she was physically disabled. Regina was also neglected by her siblings because she was unable to walk to school with them.
Between 2017-2018, the Foundation registered Regina, and her family, as a beneficiary of the garden project after their need has been assessed. Among other types of support, the Foundation provided Regina’s family with 20kgs of groundnuts for planting.
Their first harvest was a fruitful one with 100kgs of groundnuts that was sold and earned them 550,000 UGX (which equates to around 223.5 NZD). This money was used to pay for Regina’s school uniform and material so that she could finally go to Kinyabuhara primary, a government-aided school in her area.
With this success, Regina’s family invested in a piglet and continued gardening. From groundnuts to Irish potatoes, their business grew and they were able to buy a small solar panel. The panel was used to power 3 light bulbs in their home which illuminated Regina and her siblings’ study sessions at night.
When Covid-19 hit Uganda, the Foundation was supplying food for families living on the margin and not knowing when their next meal will be. Understanding their struggle, Regina’s mother shared her stock of beans with the Foundation so that it can be distributed to three other families. That act of kindness helped those families go through the most difficult time of the pandemic.
This is the very story of “Give a person a fishing rod and they are fed for life”. And this is how the Rwenzori Special Needs Foundation is changing lives for the better in Uganda.
Your donation to the RSNF Project will enable many more success stories like Regina’s.