The Sunday News
Lister Mlotshwa, Sunday News Reporter
THE Rotary Club of Belmont together with Rotary Club Harare West yesterday donated wheelchairs to 60 children with disabilities at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) grounds in Bulawayo.
The beneficiaries were selected with the help of the Disability Board while the wheelchairs were sourced through Free Wheelchair Mission and Rotary Club of Fresno from California, United States of America.
Speaking at the donation, Rotary Club Harare Central president Ms Sikhethiwe Gomwe said the wheelchairs will help the affected children with movement.
“The Disability Board helps us in locating and identifying the disabled people who are in need of wheelchairs and the regions and the few numbers who approach us are the ones we donate to as to help them to move easily around,” she said.
Disability Board vice-president Mr Edward Mudangwa said there was also a need to source electrified wheelchairs for the affected children to enhance their mobility and ensure that even after getting wheelchairs they do not need other people to push them around.
He said parents with children with disabilities need to come out in the open so that they could be helped. Mr Mckinn Sibanda, a guardian of Dickens Sibanda, who was among the people who received donation said the wheelchair came at the right time for Dickens.
“We would like to thank the Rotary Club for their donation as it will help us a lot in terms of moving around with the children as the wheelchair is portable, foldable and perfect size for Dickens as the one that we had was old and it was too small for the child and it did affect the movements of the child as it was too hard to travel with a non-foldable wheelchair,” he said.
The Rotary Club Harare Central has been involved in the wheelchair distribution project since 2017 and have distributed over 1 000 wheelchairs across the country.
