Good Samaritan helps child with handicap

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Wednesday March 3, 2010 00:00

 

'I was touched by the story and felt that with the little that I have, I can at least buy this stuff for this kid,' she said. Seleke has expressed her joy over the gifts and said, 'you have helped me quite a lot. At least my daughter will look decent in these nice clothes,' said a happy Seleke.  Explaining how she discovered her child's situation, Seleke said by the age of nine months, when her peers were walking, her daughter was still lying on her back, unable to stand on her feet. While her age-mates now attend pre-school Seleke's five-year-old daughter, who still looks five months old, remains home where she spends most of the time lying on her cot or in her mother's lap.

'Like any parent, I had expected that she would be able to walk and go on errands like going to buy groceries at the shops, playing with other kids but unfortunately she is not even able to sit down on her buttocks. When I talk to her she either smiles or cries,' she said.

Seleke has approached both traditional and modern medicine doctors but no one has came forth with a solution. Unemployed and illiterate, Seleke has to look for odd jobs to sustain her child. She feeds her soft porridge, pounded meat and soft meats like liver. Seleke's mother sometimes helps her by baby-sitting the child.