Kenyan Parents seek Community help for Disabled Daughter
Samson Njoroge Kimani and his wife Winnie Kimani, relax at their home in Auburn Mass. together with thei special needs daughter, Jasmine Wangui Kimani (4 years) and her new baby sister Chirlene Kimani ( 9 months). The economically hard hit family is seeking community help to get speciallized treatment for their daughter. H.Maina/Ajabu |
Story and pics by Harrison Maina, Ajabu Africa News
WORCESTER, Mass, NOVEMBER 24_ When a school van pulled over by the curbside at number 1 Burbank street in Oxford, Mass. , Samson Njoroge shot out of the couch he had been sitting on and rushed towards the van.
Coincidentally, Winnie Kimani, Njoroge’s wife of four years had just pulled over into their driveway after wrapping up a 7-3pm shift at Radius of Southbridge in Southbridge, a nursing home facility where she recently got hired .
Winnie got to the school van a few seconds before Njoroge, as a wheel chair bound child was slowly let off the van by two cheerful yet methodical ladies who usually picks up their 4 year old special needs daughter, Jasmine Wangui Kimani, every day at 8 am for school at the Elmwood Elementary school in a neibouring city, Milbury, and drops her off at 3 pm.
Little Wangui , who was born with a severe form of disability, attends a special class unit at the auburn school together with 9 other children who have different forms of disabilities, where they get the best care any parent in similar circumstances would hope for.
The cheery handlers wave bye to the young girl who is now excited at recognizing her parents who are equally excited at seeing their four year old daughter back home after a day at school.
As the van pulled away, Winnie pushed the wheel chair as the accompanying father watched closely.
Wondering why two people had to come out to meet and bring indoor the disabled child in the wheel chair, I soon realized that extra energy was required to lift the heavy wheel chair over the high step right outside the main door to get into their two bedroom single family home in Auburn.
“We never had the money to build a handicap accessible ramp for the last four years, so we have to manually lift the wheel chair everyday,” said Njoroge, without looking regretful.
Samson Njoroge and his wife meet their wheelchair bound daughter after she was dropped off by a school van at their home in Oxford, Mass. |
Having arrived in the US back in 2001, Njoroge settled in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts, approximately 40 miles North of Boston. It is here that he met his soon to be wife, Winnie Kimani.
It was here that they started the normal hustle and bustle seeking to make a better life and raise a family in the new land.
Winnie worked as a CNA while Njoroge was a CDL driver, hauling loads in an 18 wheeler trailer truck across state lines.
The duo was making a decent living according to the average Kenyan immigrant standard in the west. Soon they were eying to purchase a single family house in a quiet neighborhood as they expected their first child.
After all, everyone including their friends was buying houses because of the availability of bank loans, a move that Njoroge would come to regret years later with the collapse of the housing market.
In June 2004, Njoroge and Winnie were blessed with their first born daughter. They promptly named her Jasmine Wangui, after Njoroge’s mother, in conforming to the Kikuyu culture where first born children were always named after the father’s mother or father.
Instant celebrations were organized at their two bedroom apartment in Lowell and visitors brought many gifts for the new baby. Everything was working fine and all seemed like smooth sailing.
However, after three months, things took a stunning twist. Something seemed to be happening to baby Wangui.
“We noticed that our baby was acting like she was chocking occasionally even when not feeding,” says Winnie during an interview with AjabuAfrica.com at their home.
Like any other loving parent, Njoroge and his wife were quite concerned.
They immediately brought the child for check up to the doctors at Boston Children's Hospital in Boston.
“Test after test did not reveal any specific condition that the doctors would treat,” said Njoroge.
“They did MRI’s and all known tests but all they could tell us was that our baby had low muscle tone.”
At first, both Njoroge and his wife were very alarmed and wondered why they had to be the ones confronting this kind of condition in their daughter.
“I was quite flabbergasted and I spent a lot of time asking God why this had to be me,” Njoroge said.
But even with the obvious disappointment, Njoroge and his wife had the tremendous courage to accept what was in their hands and they both decided to love their daughter and do everything possible they could to take care of her.
“I had heard of people who disowned their children when they realized they had some sort of disability. But I said I will never leave my daughter alone,” said Njoroge with a big measure of determined demeanor.
Consequently, as the months progressed, baby Wangui, who could not even sit upright even after one year needed special care. Her loose muscles all over her body meant that any wrong handling would break her fragile bones with disastrous consequences.
It therefore became apparent that the mother would have to quit her nursing assistant job to stay home full time in order to provide the child the care she needed.
Countless doctors’ appointments meant that the husband had to cut down on his long distance trucking job so as to help his wife bring their daughter to the doctors.
With the mother at home full time, the family still managed to keep their two-bedroom apartment.
But now, the things have changed for the worse.
Njoroge, the husband, who has been hitting the Mass pike everyday to Boston
to deliver mail with the Post office has found himself spending more and more time at home after his work was downsized from about 50 hours a week to less than 20.
The economic recession has caught this family at the worst time, forcing the mother to find a job as a nursing assistant again in order to supplement the husband’s meager earnings for the sake of their now two children. The couple was blessed with yet another baby girl, now nine months old.
“Life is really hard right now. We can only pay for our daily needs and have given up on the mortgage for this single family house we bought,” said Njoroge to AjabuAfrica. “Our priorities now are to keep the house warm, buy food and pay for gas to go to work,” added the clearly determined and hardworking father, who says he has been caught between a rock and a hard surface.
4 year old Jasmine Wangui Njoroge who has severe developmental challenges |
Njoroge says he does not see any need to go on welfare because he knows that given a chance, he and his wife can get things done .The family is terrified about loosing their home if the bank decided to foreclose the house, which would mean double trouble for their young disabled daughter and her 9 month old sister.
“But I will apply for home heating assistance from authorities with this coming winter season because I am afraid we can not keep up with all the bills,” quipped Njoroge.
“We are just surviving on faith and trusting God that he will see us through,” said Njoroge’s wife.
A glimmer of hope for the disabled baby Wangui surfaced when a friend of Njoroge told him that there an Indian doctor, Dr. Depit Desai , who indicated that she has previously dealt with similar conditions with a good measure of success.
However, the friend told Njoroge that the doctor does not use conventional methods of treatment. He said children drastically improve after being treated by this doctor. The friend therefore thought it was a good idea that Njoroge try for the sake of his daughter.
For Njoroge, no option was off the table when it came to getting help for his daughter that he loves dearly.
He therefore agreed to meet the doctor on her follow up visit for the treatment of at Wangombe’s house in Cherry Valley, a county in Worcester.
Upon arrival at the Wangombe’s house, Njoroge and his wife were shocked to me met by Wangombe's 9 year old daughter who the doctor was coming to see.
According to Njoroge, when the young special needs girl saw his daughter in a wheel chair and did not seem to talk at all, she excitedly pointed at the doctor saying,
“ Doctor, doctor. Talk to doctor, I was like her. I was not walking or talking. Doctor can help her”.
“We were completely taken by surprise that the girl was talking coherently and walking, after about two years of treatment by the said doctor. We totally did no expect this sort of improvement after hearing how the girl was before she got the treatment. The young girl instantly gave us big hope”.
According to Njoroge, Dr. Desai told him that she has worked with children with similar conditions as baby Wangui and that there was hope for drastic improvement if they got started on with the specialized treatment.
Dr. Desai would have to occasionally visit their home to follow-up treatment.
Dr. Desai has an office in New York and splits her scarce time between working with many clients from many communities including Kenyans in Massachusetts. She is a top research scientist .
She also regularly travels to her home country, India where she runs a health care facility in conjunction with other partners. Dr. Desai has also visited Kenya many times where she has developed a growing clientele who have seen positive results from her innovative natural sciences treatment programs that never involve ingestion of any meds.
Njoroge and his wife were extremely elated at the words of hope coming out of the doctor’s mouth. Added to the fact that the doctor was treating another baby of Kenyan descent in Worcester who is also disabled with what parents described as massive progress, they decided to give their daughter a shot at treatment with the Indian doctor.
However, due to the fact that this doctor uses unconventional means to treat, yet not illegal, then their baby’s mass health insurance coverage can not meet the costs involved which knocked the family back into the present cold reality of no cash no nothing but trouble.
It would cost at least $10,000 for the treatment program by Dr. Desai. That added to the other special things that the disabled like a wheelchair accessible ramp for easy access to their house, and the mounting bills popping up at their mail box, was enough to send the heads of these loving parents spinning.
Samson Njoroge holds the door to let in his wife Winnie bring their daughter into their house after school.The entrance is not wheelchair accessible, causing tremendous hardship for this Kenyan immigrant family. |
After an initial shock and wondering what to do, Njoroge and his wife remembered that they were Kenyans after all.
Kenyans are people who are being revered by other communities in America for their selfless and significant generosity to any colleague who falls into trouble regardless of their tribal background.
They have time and again risen to the occasion and fundraised thousands of dollars in just few days for a dead colleague or for an ailing Kenyan. This genuine concern for a neighbor and the many other unique achievements Kenyans are making, have made them to be envied by other African immigrant communities as well as those form other races.
Thus, Njoroge and his wife had nobody to turn to in their hour of need other than their community.
With the full knowledge that this situation could happen to anyone, sympathizing friends immediately formed a fundraising committee which started the tedious work to organize a fundraising drive to help baby Wangui get treatment that might help her feel better.
The fund raising event was set to take place Saturday, December 5th at the South Works VFW, on 1059 Milbury Street, off route 146 in Worcester
“This is the only thing we can do to help,” said James Ndungu of Springfield, the chairman of the fundraising committee. Njoroge occasionally drives 40 miles from Springfield to Auburn for meetings without flinching.
He asked Kenyans to turn out in large numbers to help fundraise for the disabled Kenyan child.
These parents definitely need a van to help them navigate their way easily for the numerous appointments that the child needs in order for her to improve,” said Esther Karinge of Medford Mass. Karinge, a mother of a special needs child, turned to the Kenyan community back in 2001 when she had uncountable problems trying to get one and only son some help in order to undergo treatment.
Kenyans responded and raised about $25,000 for Karinge and she was able to buy a special van to handle a wheel bound child.
Karinge said that she sympathized with these parents when she learned that they use their regular cars to transport their two children anywhere.
“That’s unbelievable hardship and stress,” said Karinge.
Nicholas Karinge cheers at her mother, Esther Karinge during a recent community event in Boston. Nicholas had been severely challenged at birth but the Kenyan community in Boston fundraised to help his mother easy access to treatment which has been extremely successful. |
Karinge’s son, Nicholas Karinge who many had written off, has improved tremendously, shocking doubters at how God can bring healing to any condition as long as one has faith and does the right walk with God.
According to Karinge, school reports indicate that her son is now a straight A student at a school in Medford, Mass, easily outscoring ordinary children in his class time after time.
“I am grateful to the Kenyan community for what they did for me and my son, and I hope they can do the same to these parents and child,” added the mother of one.
“A special needs van will remove the stress already suffered by the parents and healing will be faster, Karinge stressed.
The devastating crunch that Njoroge and his wife have found them in does not even allow them to attend church together.
Njoroge said that he occasionally attends the Divine Gospel Ministries church in Worcester and had once brought his daughter to be prayed for at a church fellowship.
However the wife says she rarely attends church because she has to stay home to take care of the special needs child and her young sister even thought they usually have a helper.
“The amount of care needed for this child is a lot and the house help can no manage to take care of the two children,” said Winnie Kimani, Njoroge’s wife.
She added that the main reason she does not attend church is that baby Wangui usually becomes too noisy when in public and that would cause a lot of disruption in church.
The couple said that there has been no one who has yet offered to conduct prayers at their house and that they hope church leaders will pray for them.
“Please organize yourself and find someone to work for you on December 5th so that you can come and help this child,” said the chairman of the fundraising committee.
The fundraising will start at 5pm to 12am.
Kenyans and well wishers are all invited to attend, and those who may wish to deposit funds in the specially created account can do so at:
Citizens Bank
Account Name: JASMINE KIMANI
Checking Account #: 1316259738
For more information, call;
Sam Njoroge- Dad : (508) 615- 0734
Winnie Kimani- Mom : (774) 232-6987
James Ndungu- Chairman : (781) 985-6439
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