Tempers flare as Family clash over donated money

Samson Njoroge clears the doorway for his wife, Winnie Kimani, to bring in their 4 year old daughter , Jasmine Kimani who has a severe form of developmental disability.The couple is very unhappy with a fundraising commitee that is withholding funds needed to either build a handicap accessible ramp at their house or buy a handicap accessible van for easier transportation. Looking on from the inside is the couple's 15 month old daughter, Charlene Kimani. Family feud has come up as cause of the money trouble.

By Harrisom Maina, Ajabu Africa News

WORCESTER, Mass. MARCH 29_Four months since relatives, friends and well wishers braved the harsh snow of the just concluded winter season to attend a fundraising drive in aid of medical expenses for a Kenyan special needs child in Worcester, event organizers, made up of extended family members, are still withholding a large amount of the funds, citing family differences on how to spend the money.

And therefore, nothing has significantly changed on the living condition for little Jasmine Wangui Kimani, as the Kenyan community hoped for, when they raised the money for the four-year old child suffering from a severe developmental disability.

Due to her severe form of disability, doctors in Massachusetts could not pinpoint a particular disease to treat. However, Wangui’s family opted for the unconventional Bio-Magnetism treatment only offered by an Indian Doctor, well known in the Kenyan community in Massachusetts.

According to Wangui’s parents, Samson Njoroge and wife Winnie Kimani,   progress has been noted in other disabled children they know, after they underwent similar treatment from Dr. Desai, hence the reason his family and  in-laws decided to do a funds drive to raise the $10,000 needed for the treatment.
 
But in a story published by AjabuAfrica.com prior to the fund raising, it  became clear that the family was going through a tremendous financial hardship and could not do other things that were critical for the comfortable handling of the disabled child  in the process of the daily living activities.

The husband, a commercial truck driver, was not getting enough from his job due to the economic recession hitting every sector at the time, and his wife had been out of work for about 2 years so as to take care of the disabled child, together with their second born child, 15-month old Charlene Kimani.

Other critical services, other than the medical treatment that the community identified as urgently needed were a handicap accessible van and a ramp at the family’s house in Oxford to ease the stress on the child and the parents during transportation to school, doctor’s appointments and outings like any other person.

Samuel Njoroge watches over his special needs daughter, Jasmine Muthoni

“My wife and I have to put Wangui on a wheel chair to get her out of the house to the side walk, then to a child seat in the back of our regular cars,” said Samson Njoroge on a telephone interview with Ajabu Africa News.

Njoroge added that on reaching any particular destination, they have to repeat the process all over again, making the child unsettled.

“During this movements and transfers, Wangui becomes irritated and stressed out. She cries a lot. Sometimes we have to stop going where we were supposed to because she becomes too irritated,” he added.

During the fundraising that took place on Sunday, December 5 at the VFW hall on Lincoln Street in Worcester and attended by dozens of Kenyans from near and far, speaker after speaker expressed the desire to do whatever was necessary to raise funds for the well being of Jasmine Wangui.

“This child is ours as the Kenyan community in Worcester,” said Pastor Dominic Nyutu of the Compassionate Fellowship Church. “We need to help her and make it a priority to provide all those things that she might need for treatment and a comfortable living,” added the man of God.

“I came here not because of anything or anyone, but because the lord commands us to help the helpless and weep with those who cry,” said Rev. Christopher Kamau as he brought a donation from the Divine Gospel ministries in Worcester.
 
Also, a group of well wishers from Springfield led by the chairman of the fundraising committee, James Ndungu , who is also the vice chairman of the Kenya Christians Welfare Association, and the chairman of Tumaini Community church, together with commitee's treasurer, Gatua Ndungu, also a leader at the Tumaini Gospel church. They all expressed a deep desire not to tire until they raised enough money to enable the start of treatment for Wangui.

Other Kenyans came all the way from New Bedford and Taunton in the south shore of Boston as well as other areas, defying a snow storm that kept many other people who would have wanted to be present away from the event.

However, those who attended the event raised $13,600, beating the target amount of $10,000 needed for the actual doctor’s bill.
 
But in a twist of events, the extra $3,600 has become a bone of contention in the large extended family, providing a platform for accusations and counter -accusations among family members, to the extent of the matter becoming public.

During a follow-up telephone conversation with Ajabu Africa.com, the father of the child, Samson Njoroge, said that with his wife, they have totally lost confidence in the organizing committee’s desire to see their child get  the  services she needs promptly without delays.

Since all the money raised was deposited in a savings account in Citizens Bank under the child’s name,  the parents have no access to the money, and the only the signatories are  the chairman, James Ndungu and the treasurer Gatua Ndungu. Both are from Springfield, about 55 miles from the family’s home in Oxford, near Worcester.

James Mdungu, chairman of the fundrasing commitee

Njoroge said that since the fundraising was concluded in December 5th last year, none of the members of the committee have bothered to go to their house to see   how Jasime is doing. “It was also a tug of war to get the chairman and the treasurer to make available the $5,000 to send to the doctor in India, as a down payment for the specialized medical equipment needed for the Bio Magnetics treatment.

But after much struggle, a check was written and sent to Dr. Desai’s Office in New York. As a result, the doctor, who resides in India but occasionally visits her patients in the US, and maintains an office in New York, eventually, shipped the equipment to the family.

However, since some of the equipment was being shipped form India and others from Germany, it took about two moths for the shipping, customs clearance and delivery. The doctor expects to be paid the rest of the $5,000 balance when the next phase of the treatment commences.
 
Once the equipment arrived however, Njoroge and his wife realized that they needed to buy a larger bed for their child because some of the equipment sent required the child to sleep on and could not fit in the bed that they already had.
 
So, after shopping for and locating a suitable bed at the Chevalier furniture store in Worcester, the parents contacted the committee’s chairman, James Ndungu and the treasurer, Gatua Ndungu, to release the funds to purchase the bed.
 
“The chairman denied our request and said that the bed was not part of a medical equipment so he would not authorize the $1,900 payment to the Chevalier furniture for the bed,” said the distressed  father, who together with the  chairman, Ndungu are married to a 3rd born and 4th born sisters respectively.

Jasimine's father added that the chairman and the secretary of the committee, Sarah Kimani from Taunton, who is also a sister to Jasmine's mother, said that Njoroge should use his money he received from his tax returns and from his work to purchase the bed.

“They have been very unfair and disrespectful to us, and have little concern for our disabled child,” said Njoroge. “They say that I can’t manage our finances so I should not be given the money, yet I have been providing for this family for the last seven years and I pay my bills since we got married,” added the clearly infuriated father.

Reached  for comment by Ajabu Africa.com  on the  telephone, the chairman of the committee said that some members of the committee, who are in-laws to Njoroge, felt that the balance of the money should not be given to Jasmine’s father because he could easily misappropriate it , especially since they hear that Njoroge was planning a visit to Kenya in the near future.

Ndungu said that they initially denied the family the money to pay for the needed bed because the bed was not medical equipment. “It was not a medical bed, so we did not think it was wise to spend the money to buy it,” said Ndungu.

Gatua Ndungu, the treasurer

However, after much pressure from the father, Ndungu relented and by the time he asked the father to go and get the treasurer to write the check, the father had already decided to use his own money to buy the bed.

“I am back to work and my wife too is working now so I just decided to purchase the bed with my own money,” said Njoroge.

The committee treasurer, Gatua Ndungu said that he did not have a problem buying the bed but he found himself caught up in a family wrangle that he wanted to avoid.

“I was ready to send the money to Chevalier furniture after all the arguments occurred but when I reached the area, the bank was closed so I could not get the money,” said Gatua.

“After this, the chairman told me to leave the matter to him, that he will take care of everything. And since I realized that this was a family issue, I decided to stay out of it,” he added.

Contacted for comments by Ajabu Africa.com, the committee secretary, who is the younger sister to Jasmines’s mother, Sarah Kimani of Taunton, reiterated the notion that the money should not be spent on buying a bed that is not part of the medical equipment.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to buy a bed with this money because it’s not a medical bed. We came up as a family and decided not to give them all the money raised because we felt that they might misappropriate it,” said the mother of three.
 
She said that the excess money should be saved for any unforeseen eventuality in the future for the sake of the disabled child, irrespective of whether there are some currently existing needs to make the life of the child a lot easier and facilitate faster progress in the healing process.

“This money doesn’t have to be used just like that. They should use their own money to buy the bed,” she added.

Pressed on why the balance of the money could not be put down as a deposit to buy a used handicap accessible van, or build a ramp at the family’s home now that the contentious bed has been purchased by the parents, both the secretary and the chairman remained non committal.
 
“All the remaining money donated is still intact at the Bank.If the committee sees it fit to give the family the entire money, I don’t have any problem,” said James Ndungu, the chairman who displayed the most recent bank statement in the amount of $8,665.00 to AjabuAfrica.com. " It is very wrong for some people to claim that we "ate" the money", added Ndungu.

“In fact, if this money will bring all these problems, it’s better to give it back to them and they can figure out what to do with it,” said Sarah Kimani.

Njoroge, the child's father added that “It’s me and my wife who know what our child needs and we are the ones in constant contact with the doctor. We have lost faith in this committee and they should just give us the money to manage our own affairs".

Njoroge added that as parents of Jasmine, they hihgly appreciated the help that Kenyans gave them in raising the funds and they know they can not go back and ask people for another fundraising. "

We just want to show people the progress we are doing for Jasmine with the money they donated to us,” he said.

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