Children Like Us
Children Like Us is a new community-based rehabilitation program started in Masisi territory in June 2006, under the leadership of a young woman, Hortense, who lives with physical disability after childhood polio.
The purpose of the program is to identify children with disability, give them surgical care, assist their families with income generation grants and works to combat the community attitudes towards people living with physical handicaps. Children who are candidates for this program are identified through a combination of visits to villages by the ECN team, working with village leaders and the Nehemiah Initiatives.
HEAL Africa works collaboratively with thirteen other organisations and the COPH (Council of Organizations working with the Physically Handicapped) in North Kivu to provide this service. This ambitious program is funded by a grant from Development Cooperation Ireland (CBM), and has literally made a life-changing difference to many children in North Kivu and their families.
What difference does it make?
- Children like Musa, Asifiwe and Sifa can now walk, use limbs and prostheses.
- Children who have been marginalized may now attend school.
- Families receive medical and psychosocial help which has previously been impossible.
- Communities see the vulnerable in a different way; they may now be considered a resource rather than a burden.
Tungane School
In September 2006 a new initiative began through HEALing Arts. It is a little school for children living at HEAL Africa's hospital for long stretches of time, either for their own medical needs or accompanying another member of the family getting medical care. For many of the children, it is their first experience in a classroom setting. Children Like Us is working to keep the children in school when they return to the village through a combination of advocacy, income generation grants and solidarity groups for families of the children.