One day, Brother Paul, a Congolese brother, came to see me.
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| Nellie with her new wheelchair |
“I need help with a little
project,” he said. “A lot of people are disabled because of Polio. One young disabled
man, called Wakaduku, wants to build wheelchair-bikes to allow these people to
become mobile.”
I turned to my facebook
friends and one immediately set up a just giving page. In no time at all, the
first wheelchair was paid for.
I’d posted a video of Nellie
on Facebook a couple months before.
“I’ve never had a
wheelchair,” she said, “I really struggle in life because I can’t get about.”
Nellie lives with her children in a house made from mud and sticks; she has a
vegetable plot just in front. To tend to her garden she crawled through the
mud. She was extremely pleased with her wheelchair.
A group of five disabled
people were waiting for me the next day. “We want wheelchairs as well!” they
said. I felt a new role coming on.
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| Achilla |
The next wheelchair was for
a young man called Achilla, who lives opposite Nellie.
Then one morning, Pauline, a
young woman, arrived by taxi-bike. She was very polite and was trying to
complete her education. I told her that I’d put her on my list but that
Wakaduku was away and she’d have to wait a while.
The next day, I mentioned
her to Judith. “Oh yes,” she said, “Pauline lives near me.” A few weeks later,
Wakaduku returned. We were starting to become frustrated with how long he was
taking to make each wheelchair.
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| Judith's Pauline |
Another day, Judith decided
that we should visit Pauline to tell her that the wheelchair was almost ready.
As we approached the house I saw a woman. “That’s not her,” I whispered. “Yes,
that’s Pauline,” replied Judith. I then realised that there were two Paulines –
‘my Pauline’ and ‘Judith’s Pauline’. What could I do? ‘Judith’s Pauline’ had
been told she was getting the next chair, so ‘my Pauline’ would have to wait.
‘My Pauline’ came to see me,
a few days later. I started to film her with flip-flops on her hands crawling
across the ground at our house. Once again I posted it on Facebook and people
from Middlesbrough Diocese immediately started sending £10 here, and £20 there.
We got somebody else to build the chair from scratch. Pauline got her
wheelchair within a week.
Next came Soliel. We bought
a nearly new wheelchair and changed the wheels to cope with our rough terrain.
... and, now, we are already preparing for the next. Keep it up Middlesbrough
Diocese!
