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- Now more than ever: Mirsa, 6 years old, is asleep on the couch. Story of Abe Aduimenau and his family. His wife Habiba and his daughters Mirsa and Aliya all have disabilities. Photo: CBM © CBM
What You Cannot Steal
When we first meet Abe Aduimenau and his family in the town of Adama, Ethiopia, I think we’re entering the house of someone who is well-to-do. I don’t know that this house is only an empty shell, a reminder of a life that once was. Thieves robbed Abe and his family of everything. Now their ability to live a full life is stripped by grinding poverty. But it is the combination of poverty and disability which has taken from Abe his most precious possession: his ability to hope.
We sit on Abe’s couch. His six-year-old daughter, Mirsa, is sleeping nearby. Her body is small and her hands palsied. Besides cerebral palsy, she has epilepsy and a mental impairment. Mirsa's younger sister, Aliya, has the same disability as her sister. Aliya is sleeping in the back room. Habiba, Aliya and Mirsa’s mother, is also sitting in the back room of the house, a silhouette in the darkness. This is how she spends her time. Habiba is just 28. She is paralysed from the waist down.
Abe gently strokes his daughter’s head while she sleeps. He begins to tell us his life story. “I have 6 children,” he begins. “Aliya and Mirsa are my children by my wife Habiba. I have 4 other children by another wife. I have a difficult time caring for my children and family. We survive on the goodwill of my parents, who send us food. They have given us everything we have eaten this year. It is up to us to find the rest. This is how we live.”
Abe and his family are lucky to have food. Rural farms in Ethiopia, where Abe’s parents live, are far from a secure investment. 90 per cent of the agriculture in Ethiopia depends upon rain. If the rains stop for one season, there is no harvest. It is an existence lived on a knife edge. I shudder to think what would happen to Abe and his children if the rains failed.
Abe is 32. He understands that he can’t always rely on the good will of his family, and is always looking for work. “Sometimes I look for work as a middleman, as a broker, but the broker business is about chance; it’s unpredictable. Sometimes you’re able to find work. Other times you find nothing.”
Money wasn’t always an issue for Abe. Years ago he was taken hostage by robbers. The robbers took everything he had: 200,000 birr (about 20 thousand USD). If Abe had the money now, he would spend it on the best care for his children. “If I were wealthy, I would take my children to a hospital, but I don’t have money. I can’t find a solution. It is very difficult for me to live.”
We sit on Abe’s couch. His six-year-old daughter, Mirsa, is sleeping nearby. Her body is small and her hands palsied. Besides cerebral palsy, she has epilepsy and a mental impairment. Mirsa's younger sister, Aliya, has the same disability as her sister. Aliya is sleeping in the back room. Habiba, Aliya and Mirsa’s mother, is also sitting in the back room of the house, a silhouette in the darkness. This is how she spends her time. Habiba is just 28. She is paralysed from the waist down.
Abe gently strokes his daughter’s head while she sleeps. He begins to tell us his life story. “I have 6 children,” he begins. “Aliya and Mirsa are my children by my wife Habiba. I have 4 other children by another wife. I have a difficult time caring for my children and family. We survive on the goodwill of my parents, who send us food. They have given us everything we have eaten this year. It is up to us to find the rest. This is how we live.”
Abe and his family are lucky to have food. Rural farms in Ethiopia, where Abe’s parents live, are far from a secure investment. 90 per cent of the agriculture in Ethiopia depends upon rain. If the rains stop for one season, there is no harvest. It is an existence lived on a knife edge. I shudder to think what would happen to Abe and his children if the rains failed.
Abe is 32. He understands that he can’t always rely on the good will of his family, and is always looking for work. “Sometimes I look for work as a middleman, as a broker, but the broker business is about chance; it’s unpredictable. Sometimes you’re able to find work. Other times you find nothing.”
Money wasn’t always an issue for Abe. Years ago he was taken hostage by robbers. The robbers took everything he had: 200,000 birr (about 20 thousand USD). If Abe had the money now, he would spend it on the best care for his children. “If I were wealthy, I would take my children to a hospital, but I don’t have money. I can’t find a solution. It is very difficult for me to live.”
'Poverty and disability'
It was poverty that robbed the next piece of this family’s life. After Habiba gave birth to Aliya, she noticed that something was wrong. “It started when I gave birth to my youngest daughter,” Habiba begins, her voice floating out of the dark room. “I don’t know the cause. I still don’t know the cause.” From the dark back room, Habiba describes how she came to be paralysed.
Her life is very different now. “Before this, I would do all the household activities. I would prepare food, wash my clothes and my children’s clothes. I also used to sell some of the food I would prepare in my house in the nearby area.”
“I gave birth with a traditional midwife in the village. But when the pain persisted, they took me to a hospital. They said different things. Some said it was an infection, others said it was a nerve problem,” Habiba remembers.
“We don’t have an income,” Abe adds. “We couldn’t afford to send Habiba to a better hospital where they could see what was causing this. We took her to one government and one private hospital, but they didn’t help us.”
Then, when Mirsa was two years old, Abe saw that something was wrong. “She had different problems, including epilepsy,” says Abe.”When we took her to hospital, the doctor was desperate. He said, ‘I don’t know what we can do with her. I can't diagnose what her condition is. There is no money for me to refer you to a better hospital. You can’t pay the transportation costs. I don’t know what to do.’ And he cried with me. The doctor cried with me because there was nothing he could do.”
For Aliya, it is the same as her sister. She started showing symptoms when she was 5 months old. Abe leans in closer. The frustration of the situation begins to show. His brow is wrinkled, his eyes tired. His voice wavers. “Look,” He says. “The situation is much worse than you think. Look at my child. She doesn’t think anything, she doesn’t move. Her sister is the same. With her mother, it’s better. Thank God that at least she can say what she wants.”
“What would you do if you were me? The food I eat does not fill me up. My thoughts are always of my children and my family. Every time I try to sleep, I can’t sleep. These thoughts spin around in my mind. I can’t avoid the pain.”
Her life is very different now. “Before this, I would do all the household activities. I would prepare food, wash my clothes and my children’s clothes. I also used to sell some of the food I would prepare in my house in the nearby area.”
“I gave birth with a traditional midwife in the village. But when the pain persisted, they took me to a hospital. They said different things. Some said it was an infection, others said it was a nerve problem,” Habiba remembers.
“We don’t have an income,” Abe adds. “We couldn’t afford to send Habiba to a better hospital where they could see what was causing this. We took her to one government and one private hospital, but they didn’t help us.”
Then, when Mirsa was two years old, Abe saw that something was wrong. “She had different problems, including epilepsy,” says Abe.”When we took her to hospital, the doctor was desperate. He said, ‘I don’t know what we can do with her. I can't diagnose what her condition is. There is no money for me to refer you to a better hospital. You can’t pay the transportation costs. I don’t know what to do.’ And he cried with me. The doctor cried with me because there was nothing he could do.”
For Aliya, it is the same as her sister. She started showing symptoms when she was 5 months old. Abe leans in closer. The frustration of the situation begins to show. His brow is wrinkled, his eyes tired. His voice wavers. “Look,” He says. “The situation is much worse than you think. Look at my child. She doesn’t think anything, she doesn’t move. Her sister is the same. With her mother, it’s better. Thank God that at least she can say what she wants.”
“What would you do if you were me? The food I eat does not fill me up. My thoughts are always of my children and my family. Every time I try to sleep, I can’t sleep. These thoughts spin around in my mind. I can’t avoid the pain.”
There is a small consolation for this family. For four years, CBM's Community Rehabilitation Workers have been working with these children. “The fieldworkers have tried very much to support us.” Abe says. “They are like relatives. They care about Aliya and Mirsa. They care about the whole family.”
“They’ve constructed a parallel bar in order to be able to do exercises to help our children walk. They do different exercises with the children. They help our family – they help us find different ways to change our lives. Unfortunately though, we haven’t seen a change in our children.”
Abe doesn’t have much hope for the future. To him he has two options – and two options only. “There are two ways I could improve my life.” He says. “The first is to sell the land I own, move back to my rural area and ask my parents to let me live with them. To let them care for my family and me. Perhaps they’d give me a small piece of land I could farm. The other thing I could do is to sell this land and send my family back to the rural area to live with my parents. I would buy other land here and put what money I can find into a new business.”
Whatever happens – Abe feels he can’t continue to live the way he does now. The house he lives in has holes in the ceiling. He doesn’t have the money to fix it. We ask him about his hope for the future. His answer is as dark as the room his wife is hidden in. “I don’t hope anything. I don’t believe in hope. I feel like I am going to be like my children. I don’t hope at all. The only thing I do is to pray to God.”
As we leave we tell Abe we will pray for him. He thanks us hollowly.
Worse is a hard possibility to imagine. Yet, for Abe and his family – as it is for many of the worlds’ poorest living with disability – there is only a fine thread dividing life and death. What is this thread? Is it God? As we leave, I pray that it is God. Because I know that God – and His love – is the one thing that nothing – bandits, poverty, disability – nothing can steal from you.
“They’ve constructed a parallel bar in order to be able to do exercises to help our children walk. They do different exercises with the children. They help our family – they help us find different ways to change our lives. Unfortunately though, we haven’t seen a change in our children.”
Abe doesn’t have much hope for the future. To him he has two options – and two options only. “There are two ways I could improve my life.” He says. “The first is to sell the land I own, move back to my rural area and ask my parents to let me live with them. To let them care for my family and me. Perhaps they’d give me a small piece of land I could farm. The other thing I could do is to sell this land and send my family back to the rural area to live with my parents. I would buy other land here and put what money I can find into a new business.”
Whatever happens – Abe feels he can’t continue to live the way he does now. The house he lives in has holes in the ceiling. He doesn’t have the money to fix it. We ask him about his hope for the future. His answer is as dark as the room his wife is hidden in. “I don’t hope anything. I don’t believe in hope. I feel like I am going to be like my children. I don’t hope at all. The only thing I do is to pray to God.”
As we leave we tell Abe we will pray for him. He thanks us hollowly.
Worse is a hard possibility to imagine. Yet, for Abe and his family – as it is for many of the worlds’ poorest living with disability – there is only a fine thread dividing life and death. What is this thread? Is it God? As we leave, I pray that it is God. Because I know that God – and His love – is the one thing that nothing – bandits, poverty, disability – nothing can steal from you.
With your help, lives have been greatly improved for millions of the world’s poorest people affected by disability. But now the pressures of the global economic crisis are hurting people a world away, people like Abe. The World Bank says the economic crisis will push 53 million people back into extreme poverty, back to trying to survive on less than $1.25 a day.
In a difficult and uncertain economic situation, it is families like Abe’s who need your help first. With funds, it would be possible for the CBR worker to give Habiba a wheelchair. With help, this family could be eligible for a micro-credit loan. But first, families like Abe’s need your help. They need it now more than ever.
The World Bank estimates that owing to the economic crisis, an additional 10 million people will be living with poverty and disability. Like many affected by disability, Abe was once able to support his family. We, like Abe as he was then, going from hospital to hospital to find help for his young family, are still eager for a solution. But now, the children cannot move, can’t do anything. Without intervention, there is a chance they may never improve.
Please help those like Abe who are affected by poverty and disability. Those who, because of the economic crisis, need your help now more than ever. The field worker tells us that with a lot of work, there’s hope. Hope that Aliya and Mirsa might, one day, be able to walk on the parallel bars, go to school, earn their own income, have children of their own. Perhaps if Abe could hope, this is what he would hope for.
In a difficult and uncertain economic situation, it is families like Abe’s who need your help first. With funds, it would be possible for the CBR worker to give Habiba a wheelchair. With help, this family could be eligible for a micro-credit loan. But first, families like Abe’s need your help. They need it now more than ever.
The World Bank estimates that owing to the economic crisis, an additional 10 million people will be living with poverty and disability. Like many affected by disability, Abe was once able to support his family. We, like Abe as he was then, going from hospital to hospital to find help for his young family, are still eager for a solution. But now, the children cannot move, can’t do anything. Without intervention, there is a chance they may never improve.
Please help those like Abe who are affected by poverty and disability. Those who, because of the economic crisis, need your help now more than ever. The field worker tells us that with a lot of work, there’s hope. Hope that Aliya and Mirsa might, one day, be able to walk on the parallel bars, go to school, earn their own income, have children of their own. Perhaps if Abe could hope, this is what he would hope for.
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Thank you.
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- The campaign logo for 'Now more than ever' © CBM
About 'Now more than ever'
'Now more than ever' is a strategic campaign by CBM designed to highlight the additional financial burden that the economic crisis will place on the poorest of the poor: 10 million poor families with disabilities.
The objective of the campaign is to share with CBM donors and other stakeholders the concrete impact that the worldwide economic crisis has on persons and families with disabilities (PwDs) living in the poorest parts of the world.
The rationale for taking action is that due to the economic crisis, it is not “business as usual” as if nothing has happened, but CBM must ensure it helps, with its partners, to minimise the impact of the economic crisis on PwDs and to maximise the opportunities for an inclusive future for PwDs.
This will be done by highlighting the “life or death” impact of the economic crisis on PwDs, through stories of the positive impact of donations on the lives of those we reach. The campaign is planned to run from April 2009 until latest December 2009.
The objective of the campaign is to share with CBM donors and other stakeholders the concrete impact that the worldwide economic crisis has on persons and families with disabilities (PwDs) living in the poorest parts of the world.
The rationale for taking action is that due to the economic crisis, it is not “business as usual” as if nothing has happened, but CBM must ensure it helps, with its partners, to minimise the impact of the economic crisis on PwDs and to maximise the opportunities for an inclusive future for PwDs.
This will be done by highlighting the “life or death” impact of the economic crisis on PwDs, through stories of the positive impact of donations on the lives of those we reach. The campaign is planned to run from April 2009 until latest December 2009.
