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Twahiri's story Twahiri's mother Fatuma, is not only poor, her life has been full of grief. Nine times she hoped for a child, but nine times she miscarried. Finally, Fatuma received her heart's desire. "When I was told I had a baby, I didn't believe them." Her joy was short-lived, though. Fatuma was told her baby was born blind, with cataracts in his tiny eyes.Twahiri's father abandoned Fatuma when Twahiri was just two weeks old. Fatuma struggled to support her child on her own and had to rely on her poor and overstretched community for help. "I don’t have a permanent home. I keep shifting from one place to the next,” she explained, with her little boy wasting away with malnutrition. Imagine if your own child was blind in such a poor place, rejected by other children, barred from school in a society where disability is not understood and considered a curse. What hope could he have for marriage or family or livelihood? This despair besets so many families living with poverty and disability in places like Tanzania. People with disabilities often have no rights.  We wanted Twahiri to have his miracle, but when Fatuma brought him to our hospital he was too weak from malnutrition to undergo cataract surgery. Fatuma nearly lost hope, but the staff had the resources to nurse and nourish Twahiri back to health.Then a $230 cataract operation gave Twahiri his whole life back. It was the gift of sight for a child; independence for an abandoned mother and a gift to a community struggling to support children with disabilities. |
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