Handicapped woman:
In
WCIC we work to help marginalized and poor women. One group in the
Cameroonian society is for sure marginalized and poor, the handicapped.
They are treated as non-existing by their fellow citizens and they get
no aid from the government nor appliances to help them earn a living and
transport themselves. Therefore they are extremely dependant on family
and relatives’ will to help.
We
in WCIC experienced what it means to be in this situation, after a
handicapped woman told us her story.
The
woman came to center one morning in a three wheeled chair pushed by a
random man she had met in the street. She can only get around by asking
people if they care to push her paying them some money. In this case she
had covered quite a distance to reach the center. The wheelchair has a
trunk advertising for Maggi bouillon. It’s a saleswoman who has given it
to her, so she’s able to earn a little bit of money selling Maggi
bouillon from the trunk.
The
woman is limb in one side of her body having only one arm and one leg to
help her navigate, which makes it impossible for her to push the wheels.
She has been limb since she was small because of a children disease
against which she didn’t get a vaccine. Now she’s become older and
she has had enough.
Her
own mother won’t acknowledge her as a part of the family and says that
she’s nothing but a burden. Her family has abandoned her leaving her
to sleep under the open air behind the parent’s house. Sometimes they
don’t even help her to bed, so she has to sleep in the wheelchair. All
she wants is a place of her own; a room with a roof and a toilet. Her
father who died recently owned properties in
Now
the woman wants to take her mother to court for abandoning her
obligations towards her and is asking WCIC for advice and legal
assistance
This
woman is definitely a part of WCIC’s target group, wherefore we of
course has taken her case and hopefully we’ll get her a dry place to
stay and money to survive. She deserves a decent living as well as
anybody else.