Story by Miyoba Hamuhuma (CEO Enlight Abilities) and Nontsikelelo Nzula (AfricaGiving)
In the first half of 2024, The AfricaGiving Team hosted the $100 for 100 fundraising campaign that ran from February to May. The campaign aimed to harness donations from 100 people each donating US$100 or more. The campaign had multiple beneficiaries. One of these is an organization based in Zambia called Enlight Abilities whose mission is to support people with disabilities to fulfil their potential and live a life with dignity, rights and capacity to become productive citizens of their communities.
Through the donation, Enlight Abilities was able to repair the wheelchair lift for their organization’s handicapped-accessible bus. The bus is the only means of transportation that the organization has to carry out its activities such as outreach, taking of children with disabilities to hospitals, distribution of assistive devices, and attending meetings. Since its repair the bus has been very instrumental in the carrying out of human rights education activities, the registration of people with disabilities by the Zambia Agency for Persons with Disabilities (ZAPD), the issuance of disability cards and health assessments by the doctors from Zambia’s Ministry of Health. These activities were carried out in collaboration with the Zambia Agency for Persons with Disabilities and the Ministry of Health.
Since the 100 for 100 campaign, 300 people with disabilities have been registered and earmarked to receive their disability cards in September and October 2024. In August more than 500 people with disabilities and their families were educated on the rights of people with disabilities. With this awareness, people with disabilities are now geared to claim their rights and promised to sensitize others living with disabilities who could not attend the awareness meetings. During the meetings the organisations discovered that majority of people with disabilities had been severely affected by the 2023-24 drought and urgently needed food relief. In addition, many did not have disability cards causing them to miss out on social security programmes.
The remainder of the donation went to running a paid awareness radio program on the 13th of August through a community-based radio station that covers the eastern Province of Zambia where Enlight Abilities operates. The program proved successful in its mandate to educate and raise awareness on the rights of persons with disabilities. The radio program was planned to run once but because of listener demand it ran three times, reaching at least 30,000 listeners.
The radio program looked at the following topics:
- Advocating for increased enrollment of children with disabilities in mainstream schools,
- Advocating for quality health services for children with disabilities,
- Encouraging people with disabilities to obtain disability cards in order to have access to the government social security programs such as social cash transfer, farming inputs and duty-free on imported assistive devices such as wheelchairs, handicapped accessible vehicles
- Impact of the drought induced starvation on disabled headed households.
Our hope is that many more givers will donate towards organisations such as Enlight abilities, so they can continue to carry out the impactful work they are doing in the nation on Zambia. You can support Enlight Abilities and many other organisations on our Africa Giving Platform where you can use your visa or Mastercard to donate to registered organisation across Africa. Africa Giving
“I believe that It is not the magnitude of the donation…but the amount of love that the Africa Giving team and people like Mr. Brian Kagoro have put into the vulnerable children with disabilities that matters”
Maybe Hamuhuma