Critical Need for Special Needs Strollers
- Laura Sharpe
- Jul 7
- 2 min read
Little Sawama, with cerebral palsy, spends most of her days laying on the floor of her family home. One day, a mattress fell on her. Despite her cries, no one noticed the mattress crushing her. Minutes went by. Her mother finally heard her crying and came running to help her. Fortunately, Sawama was unharmed. Her mother came to the Shield office extremely upset about the accident, traumatized her little girl almost suffocated on the floor. This is all too common for special needs children in many sub-Saharan African locations, as affording a wheelchair or stroller is often beyond what a family can afford. This is just one more cruel challenge to raising a child with cerebral palsy in Africa. It isn't uncommon for a child's play therapy session at Shield to be the only hour a week they are sitting up.
So we have a new goal at Shield! We are asking our carpenter to begin building special needs strollers for little kids like Sawama, to get them off the floor!
Last year, Shield's gracious donors paid for 18 special needs chairs for the center. Our carpenter built the chairs using straps and extra padding to fit children of smaller sizes. Our fleet of special chairs helps these little guys strengthen their core muscles and practice sitting up.
We are hoping the baby strollers accomplish several things for our mothers:
Allow babies and smaller children under 5 to sit up while at home
Allow for easier mobile transport for kids to sit up while being wheeled around the home or neighborhood
Save our children with cerebral palsy from the obvious safety hazards of laying on the floor, including kitchen burns, falling objects, getting stepped on by a sibling or animal, and eating fallen food or objects off the floor.
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