How POST told Pooja’s story
Since Pooja Santhoo’s birth POST has been at her side. Born weighing 1.9kg with no limbs, Pooja is now a happy-go-lucky 12-year-old who loves everything from Justin Bieber to wearing trendy chains. Her wish – to be fitted with prosthetic arms and legs – was realised thanks to generous POST readers and sponsors like Shoprite. JOLENE MARRIAH traces her journey…
POOJA’S BIRTH
AUGUST 2003: POST journalist Prinella Pillay speaks to Pooja’s mother, Seena Amrisha Santhoo, 27, of Lower Malakazi Settlement, who fainted after giving birth on August 15 at King Edward VIII Hospital.
She says doctors told her that her daughter had “short limbs” but did not explain the phenomenon.
The birth, she admits, had been unplanned.
Santhoo says times are tough and she has sent her other three children to live with relatives.
14 DAYS OLD
August 2003: POST readers flood the newspaper with calls to assist.
Nonhlanhla Malinga, a Malakazi Community Health employee, visits the Santhoos’ home – a mud and tin shack – and describes it as no place to bring up a child. The agency plans to improve the situation by providing running water, electricity and a toilet.
A R700 disability grant is also set up.
ONE MONTH
September 2003: Pooja now weighs 2.8kg. POST readers rally to help the family who are living in dire poverty.
Car loads of goods, including baby formula, nappies, clothes, a pram and groceries, are delivered to Pooja’s home.
People from as far as Johannesburg, Port Shepstone and the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands assist.
Santhoo thanks people for their help and for visiting them.
10 MONTHS
June 2004: Childless couple Rolly Maharaj, 46, and his wife Shamilla, 48, open their hearts and home to Baby Pooja.
Yogas Nair reports that Rolly, a distant relative of Pooja’s biological father Mickey, claimed that the child was left in their care without any explanation.
Pooja is in and out of hospital suffering high temperatures and mouth ulcers.
She begins calling Rolly “dadda”. Attempts by POST to get a hold of Pooja’s mother are unsuccessful.
TWO YEARS
August 2005: Pooja celebrates her second birthday and is progressing.
THREE YEARS
August 2006: Pooja celebrates her third birthday.
She is smitten with Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan and loves eating marshmallows.
She is also a whiz on her sister’s laptop and has a goldfish named Romeo.
Pooja’s favourite nursery rhyme is Mary had a little
lamb.
FOUR YEARS
August 2007: Pooja wishes she could grow hands and fingers so that she could paint her nails and wear bangles.
A fan of Barney and actress Aishwarya Rai (Bachchan), Pooja tells POST that she will one day clap and wear bangles like Rai.
She is excited about going to school the following year.
SEVEN YEARS
August 2010: Barney and even Hannah Montana are a thing of the past for Pooja. Now it’s Justin Bieber!
The Grade R pupil at Open Air School says her best friend, Mohammed, is blind. She wishes for a computer. A domestic worker is hired to care for Pooja and her older
sister, Priyanka.
ELEVEN YEARS
May 2015: POST visits Pooja at her home. She is able to use her stump to send messages via BBM and WhatsApp.
She also enjoys wearing jewellery and has a bubbly personality.
We find out that Pooja’s foster mother, Shamilla, died four years earlier from natural causes.
While Pooja misses her, she says she is close to her father and Priyanka, a Grade 11 pupil who now plays the role of mother.
JUNE 2015
Pooja and Priyanka, together with a POST team, visit orthotists Christopher Beresford and Tjaart Kruger of TAP Kruger Orthopaedics in Glenwood, Durban, to get the ball rolling in making Pooja’s dreams of having prosthetic arms and legs come true.
AUGUST 2015
For the first time in her life, Pooja wraps her arms around her 17-year-old sister Priyanka, after she is fitted with prosthetic arms. This is after POST readers helped raise R109 000 for the arms.
The original cost of both prosthetic arms and legs was R408 500. It was reduced to R238 500 – R109 000 for the arms and R129 500 for the legs.
Beresford says the arms will work with a cable system fitted with a harness that Pooja will wear around her shoulder.
“Pooja will use her upper body strength to work the arms – after all, the arms are mechanical and not electrical,” he
explains.
SEPTEMBER 2015
At the POST/ SAB Women’s Day Breakfast Pooja hands retired judge Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay a bouquet of flowers, leaving many teary eyed.
Pooja walks on to the stage on stumps and reaches out to the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights with her new prosthetic arms – for which POST and its generous readers, including Pillay, paid.
POST announces a further fund-raising drive to raise funds for artificial legs for Pooja, and readers and sponsors again come on board.