Help Mabaga to walk again

Friends of Braeburn Arusha are working together to fundraise for Mabaga.

Mabaga is one of those incredible artisans: creative; able to think outside the box and funny. His positivity is contagious and he always had an enviable following of friends. After school he trained to become a welder and created wonderful patterns and amazing designs from metal. If you showed him a picture or what you wanted, he could create it.

Sadly, one day after work, he was knocked off his motorbike on his way home when the bus driver, turned without indicating. In this terrible accident he lost one leg and needed pins putting in his other leg. At the age of only 22 years this enthusiastic and creative young man’s life was changed in an instance. All the savings he had put aside to buy himself a plot to build a house, were used up in the ensuing operations to save his leg.

Last year, Mabaga became one of the inspirations of our school play: ‘The Greatest Showman Reimagined’. He worked for us back stage and helped to man the pulleys that enabled our students to do their aerial arts. Through the play we raised the money he needed to buy him a prosthetic leg for his left leg, which was amputated above the knee. We hoped his right leg (which had been repaired with pins) would be able to support him to be able to walk and work again.

Sadly, over this last year, his right leg has rejected the metal pins and has become infected. This means it can no longer support him to walk with his prosthetic leg and once again he has been bound to his wheel chair. Mabaga wants to work and to look after his family. It is hard to face a future, at such a young age, bound to a wheel chair.

Recently, Dr Asaad from MP Shah Hospital has offered to help Mabaga by taking out the pins and dealing with the infection, before trying once again to repair the right leg. Although he has kindly offered his services free, we still need to raise funds for the bone graft, the anti-biotics, fixator and stay in the hospital. The amount for the two operations, along with the transport to Nairobi will be around $8000. We can only give this special young man the hope that he needs to regain his independence through your support. Through your generosity and help we can make a life-changing difference to this special young man. Please help us to make this happen.