Disabilities

Whilst life can be hard for disabled people in the UK, in the developing world it is significantly harder.  Disabled people have no mobility aids such as crutches or wheel chairs.  Parents often have to carry children, and as they get bigger, this becomes impossible, so they just stay within their houses.  The few schools that exist have no facilities to look after disabled children – no special chairs or desks, no access ramps etc. 

In some countries, babies or children that are visibly disabled physically or mentally are simply abandoned or killed at birth or in early childhood.  Often they are “returned to the jungle” – taken and abandoned in the jungle for wild animals to devour because their parents have no understanding of what is wrong with their child or how to care for them.

Jacob’s Well partners with disabled charities in Sierra Leone and Madagascar in order to give disabled children the same opportunities in life that ordinary children have.  We have helped to build specially designed buildings, provided mini-busses and equipment to enable these children to be educated and to thrive in their home settings. 

We have also enabled physiotherapists to go out and work with these children and teach them how to build and use their own mobility aids, some of which can be made locally through special techniques and patterns.