UGANDAN CHARITY PROVIDES HOPE TO CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
Production, sale of gourmet cheeses supports child development centres
It’s the type of bucolic setting that would delight any child, a goat farm with raised gardens of vegetables, herbs and flowers, all surrounded by exotic trees on a lush green landscape.
Kyaninga Dairy, though, is also a place with a serious mission. The gourmet cheese varieties being created here, their eventual destination some of the finest restaurants and shops in the capital city of Kampala, represent an innovative commercial venture with a charitable cause: child development centres.
“The money we’re making here will help us get Kasese up and running,” explained Steve Williams, the brilliant mind behind Kyaninga (pronounced ChaNING-a) Dairy and the man who runs a luxury lodge of the same name in the Kabarole district of western Uganda. “I’d eventually like to see at least nine other centres built in the next few years.”
Williams, an expat Brit who came to Uganda more than 15 years ago and never left, was talking about the Kyaninga Child Development Centre (kyaningacdc.org), which he founded in 2015 with his wife Asha and physiotherapist Fiona Beckerlegge. The centre, in the nearby town of Fort Portal, population about 54,000, was recently joined by a second in Kasese, a two hours’ drive south from Fort Portal.
This past May, I visited the child development centre with Ross Weaver and Bernie Potvin, Calgarians who are the charitable men behind Old Guys in Action (oldguysinaction.blogspot.ca), which they describe as “a somewhat elastic group of men and women of all ages,” who take on a variety of tough physical challenges in aid of the charities and inspiring people they support. Kyaninga Child Development Centre is one of them.
Meeting us there was Paul Carrick of Canmore, whose organization Embrace International Foundation (embracecanada.ca) champions the rights of children with disabilities. While visiting the charity in Uganda, the Calgarians and Canmorite also participated in two Kyaninga fundraising events, the 100-kilometre bike ride and an annual triathlon.
The Kyaninga charity, which has a vision of “equality of children with disabilities” and offers therapy and other services along with community outreach, came about after Williams and Asha, a Ugandan native, faced their own son’s health crisis. Sidney, now seven, was diagnosed with severe epilepsy and other developmental issues.
The couple was able to access the necessary medical care and therapy for their little boy. The experience, though, opened their eyes to the plight of the more than two million Ugandan children with developmental disabilities, along with the challenges faced by the parents and caregivers, most of whom live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $3 a day.
“They’re isolated so they think they’re the only ones whose child has a disability,” said Williams on a day when we visit his lodge, dairy farm and child-care centre, along with the home of two of their young clients. He soon found, though, he was up against more than just the families’ economic and logistical issues.
“They’re often told, even by health workers, that they must have done something wrong in pregnancy; some people will even say it’s punishment from God or witchcraft,” said Williams of attitudes in his adopted country toward children born with disabilities. Many of those children will spend their young lives confined to their homes. More than 90 per cent of them will never attend school.
“A lot of the fathers leave because they don’t think they could create a child like that. You need to remove the myths as quickly as possible.”
Kyaninga Child Development Centre is also a countrywide movement, to transform the way children with disabilities are seen and treated in this east African country of about 41 million.
It was why Fiona Beckerlegge changed her life plans in 2014, instead of heading home to England after a few years in Bermuda as a pediatric physiotherapist. She first arrived as the Williams’ personal physiotherapist, but soon took on the job to manage the then-fledgling centre. “I thought it would be a nice six months between jobs,” said Beckerlegge with a laugh, “and here I am, four and a half years later.”
The centre, which opened in January 2015, has been growing since Day 1, with more than 1,200 children and their families served. About half of those children are born with cerebral palsy, while the other half have developmental delays due to injuries sustained in birth or illness. Beckerlegge oversees a staff of 16, all Ugandans, including physio, speech and occupational therapists, as well as a specialist who fixes club feet. They also raise awareness through community events and vocally advocate for integrating children with disabilities into the mainstream school system.
Recently, the centre received a major boost when Paul Carrick, who with his wife Bev runs Embrace, last year sent an email to Beckerlegge offering free motorcycles.
“I thought it was some kind of scam, so I didn’t answer right away,” she said. “I told Steve about it and eventually we learned it was real.”
Those motorcycles, donated by Embrace with the help of its supporters and donors, are now being utilized to reach children in areas where families have no way to get them to the centres.
At the home of Kemisiga Rose, therapists Charles Remo Joseph and Rehema Mutoni were paying a visit to her sons, William, 11, and little brother Eric, 6. William has microcephaly, while Eric needs help with drooling and a speech impediment.
“They can’t afford to get to the centre, so we need to see them at home,” explained Joseph, a speech therapist. “They are improving so much and now things are looking up, thanks to these motorcycles,” he said. “We will be able to visit more often, which will make all the difference for their progress.”
Back at Kyaninga Dairy, Williams and his dairy manager, Alex Manyindo, were keeping an eye on the cheese the expat Brit described as bespoke. “We started selling not even a year ago,” he said on the farm where his team also hosts regular farm days for the children and families they serve. “Now we are fighting to keep up with orders,” he said with a smile of his latest entrepreneurial venture, with profits all going back to the kids.
“Next, we want togo into butter, as there is a huge market here. Then, we can eventually make more money for more centres. It would be great to be able to help children with disabilities all across Uganda.”