With support from Advantage Africa, KDPO (Kibwezi Disabled Persons' Organisation) runs a rehabilitation workshop for disabled people. Every year the workshop provides about 160 disabled children and adults with custom designed and fitted rehabilitation and mobility appliances, such as standing frames, callipers, special seating and wheelchairs. The workshop is the only one of its kind within a two-hundred mile radius and so provides an essential service for people with disabilities.

Individual assessments are made at the workshop, and appropriate equipment is then custom made or sourced from other suppliers in Kenya. All the equipment is suitable for use in the local conditions, such as wheelchairs for the rough terrain. Most importantly the appliances can be maintained and repaired with local materials at low cost. Where rehabilitation equipment is needed at home, such as the construction of parallel walking bars, a qualified workshop technician carries out the work there. KDPO outreach workers also distribute finished appliances to clients’ homes and make follow-up visits to ensure appliances are being effectively used and maintained.

Nicholas Musau is a 25 year-old man who lives in a remote rural location of Masaku Ndogo in Kibwezi District of Eastern Kenya. Nicholas’s parents say that he contracted polio when he was 3 months old. Unfortunately the lack of special education facilities in his area meant that he never went to school. KDPO are now assisting Nicholas with home based rehabilitation and a robust wheelchair to improve his mobility.