The Sunday News
Brighton Moyo, Sunday News Reporter
A 66-YEAR-OLD paraplegic widow from New Lobengula suburb in Bulawayo is appealing for assistance to take care of her mentally challenged son and two disabled grandchildren.
Mrs Loveness Tichabaiwa is disabled and lives in a two-roomed house with her mentally challenged son and eight grandchildren of which two are also disabled. She only uses one room as the other is used by a family with seven members.
She became bedridden in 2010 and has not been able to move since then.
“It has now been 12 years since this unfortunate situation struck me, and I have not been able to move my lower part of the body or do other minor things for myself because of this disability. I have been stuck in this room ever since,” she said.
She said life has been tough for the whole family because there is no one with a stable income to provide for the family.
“Ever since my first born son who was the sole breadwinner of the family passed away life has taken a turn for the worst, sometimes we go for days without any food and electricity, as it is we had no electricity yesterday because we had no money to buy it. I only get about $2 000 from Nssa as pension and that is the money we are surviving on,” she said.
Mrs Tichabaiwa said in addition to the problems they were facing, they also discovered that her late husband sold the house before he died.
“After my husband passed on, someone came here and said they had bought the house from him and wanted to evict me, my grandchildren and the mentally challenged son. We have been sharing the same house with them since 2013 because I have nowhere to go,” she said.
She said the living arrangement was causing a lot of challenges because of the large number of people residing in the same house.
“Life is difficult as you can see and the maintenance of proper hygiene has become a challenge because the house is used by 17 people, 10 from our side (one grandchild is away at the moment) and seven from the other family and there is only one toilet for the two families,” said Mrs Tichabaiwa in a bedside interview.
Her disabled five-year-old grandchild Sindisiwe Tichabaiwa cannot walk as she was born without legs and does not attend school because she does not have a wheelchair to assist her in moving around. Mrs Tichabaiwa said any form of help that would assist her and her mentally challenged son and grandchildren from well-wishers would be greatly appreciated.
“Any kind of assistance will be appreciated because as it is we have no hope, and the Nssa money is not enough to sustain the daily basics that the family requires,” she said.
Well wishers can contact Mrs Tichabaiwa on 0777863556 and 0779107578 for WhatsApp.
