By Kuda Pembere
A group of youths from one of Harare’s oldest suburbs Highfields teaming up to start an organization supporting children living with neurological conditions says much can be done to allieviate the plight of caregivers and their children with intellectual and developmental disorders.
The Charity Project was founded by Dr Mark Chunga, working with Ms Wadzanai Majuru, the operations manager; Ms Natasha Machingura, the programs manager and Mr Munyaradzi Edmore Kashiri, the finance manager.
The organization has presence in Zimbabwe South Africa and Botswana.
The organization birthed after learning of the huge burden that Africa shoulders of 35 million school age children with neurological conditions, Dr Chunga localized the research to Highfields to learn that a lot of families are enduring socio-economic stressors leading to them giving birth to children with such disorders.
“So neurological disorders come in different factors. But I think if you’re looking at Zimbabwean environment, we’ve got a lot of stressors.
“We don’t want to get into politics, but the economic barriers of the country and the neglect of human economics in Zimbabwe is one of the major causes. Right now, if you look at people, they’re giving birth when they don’t have the right equipment to start off with.
“And if you look at things like cerebral palsy, the lack of those few seconds when you lose oxygen when someone is giving birth causes cerebral palsy.
“If you look at environmental factors where we’re looking at stresses, people are giving birth when they’re stressed. People are giving birth when they already are malnutritioned themselves,” he said.
The organization supports 20 children in Highfields with food items, medication and wheelchairs with the medication fetching about US$600 for eight children, according to Mr Chunga.
“I think it depends. The thing about neurological disorders or any disability, I think, we’re not trying to, well you can’t, there’s no cure for it. So we’re trying to ease the symptoms. So while we’re trying to ease the symptoms, what we then basically do is with our six-pillar program, there’s a part where the care plan then will decide what kind of medications we have, and they vary.
“You’ve got ones that are maybe US$5 or US$6, depending on the condition the child has or living with. So in that case, we can’t really put a dollar value to it, but if you’re looking at our numbers, at least every month we’re looking at US$600 just for medication, which again is what we’re supplying to the kids that require medication,” he said.
Ms Machingura said there are socio-cultural norms which have seen these children and their caregivers being ostracized in their communities.
“Yeah, I think that’s the proper medical way to put it, because mythically we thought that someone is bewitched, they did something to my child, which came and touched my daughter, my son, and when they left everything changed.
“So this is another way for us, the charity projects, in building awareness for people to know what really causes all of that, rather than us keeping on moving with the myth that we’ve grown up with,” she said.
According to Ms Majuru, the organization is helping the caregivers with poultry projects for income generation.
“And we’ve also been providing them with food. Monthly, that is maize, milk, chicken, eggs. And also, we’ve got a project of keeping chickens for these kids. We’ve got two projects that are running. That is the project of road runners that are layers and also the broilers. These are the projects that help to sustain them,” she said.
Mrs Chiyangwa, a mother to a 13 year old child with encephalus said the organization came to her aid at the nick of time through provision of medication.
“My child was born in 2013 with encephalus and was operated after two months. From then she had a problem of speech delay, motor delay. In 2021, she had epilepsy for three months and the Charity Project came through with her medication Sodium Valproate.
“I would like to thank The Charity Project because on my own, I couldn’t afford the medication. From then she didn’t have the epileptic episodes. She now eats all types of foods unlike the past. At the moment, she is struggling with the toilet,” she said.
Local organization supports children with neurological conditions
