Nanungi, has a heart for the disabled

Seeing her daughter suffer in schools because of disability, Harriet Nannungi started her own child care centre to solve the plight of the disabled. Vivian Agaba and Andrew Masinde bring you her story .

Nannungi’s daughter, Sarah Nantongo, was born normal. At the age of four, in 1996, she got malaria. An injection administered to Nantongo sparked off her disability. Today, Nantongo, 19, cannot talk.

Nannungi worked with the L’Arche Community in 2004 and Open Doors. Both organisations deal with with children with disabilities.

“I never knew God put me in these organisations to prepare me. When my daughter became disabled, it was the only way for me to start up something to help and support children.

“I took my daughter to school, but teachers would ignore her, saying she was violent, yet that is a common trait in children with disabilities,” Nannungi explains.

Nantongo started hating school and later would not even want to go.

Finding a solution
“I decided to keep her at home and hired a private teacher who, unfortunately, moved to another place. I was left with no choice, but to stay at home and teach her. She loved studying so much,” Nannungi says.

Nannungi then decided to look around in the neighbourhood for people who had children with disabilities. She discovered over 30 children who were locked in the house, while their parents went to work.

“It hurt me so much, imagining how these children feel locked up. In 2010, I decided to start St. Noah Hands on Training Centre for children with disabilities,” Nannungi says.

The centre is in Kakindu village, Kisubi parish, Wakiso district, and supports over 30 children with disabilities.

The children are trained in different skills that have helped them earn a living. “These children can do anything as long as they are given a chance. God gave them that sense of understanding, though they cannot express it easily,” Margret Nakawunde, the director of the centre says.

“They need a lot of care and love, which is the only way one can discover their talent. That is what we are doing at our centre,” Nakawunde says.There are ten children learning to make beads and paper bags; catering and decoration. Twenty of the children cannot use their hands.

Nannungi says the few things they make are sold to small shops because they are not able to supply a larger market.

“The finances to buy the materials in large quantities is not enough,” Nannungi says.

“The children are willing to learn anything because they know that the little they earn from these products caters for their breakfast, lunch and upkeep, since most of their parents do not care much about them,” Nannungi says.

Nannungi teaching the children how to make beads

Challenges at the centre
Nannungi says there are few parents who care and check on their children, to see how they are surviving.

She says some get surprised to see their children doing some of the things they do at the centre. They leave impressed and encourage other parents with children with disabilities to bring them to the centre.

Unfortunately, this increases the centre’s expenses. The parents do not offer any form of support.

To this, Nannungi says: “We cannot turn any of the children away. We embrace them and give them the little we have. As the number increases, the expenses also increase, yet rent is also a big problem — we pay sh400,000 per month.
“There are other challenges like lack of food, clothing and transporting the children back home since they cannot move alone,” Nannungi says.

She adds that the only source of income is from the decoration she does at functions and a few sales from the items made by the children.

The centre also has to cater for the caretakers since the children need a lot of attention.

Advice to parents
Nannungi calls upon parents who have children with disabilities and society not to discriminate them because they are as important as those with no disability. “What disabled children need is to be handled gently, treated with love and respect. They tend to be short tempered, especially when they do not feel well understood. This makes some parents torture them instead, thinking they are uncontrollable,” she explains.

The team at the centre goes through Kisubi, Namulanda and Kakyindo in Entebbe looking for children with disabilities, whom they can help to give hope and a bright future.