Physically Challenged African Children In Focus On Glo-Sponsored African Voices

Two change makers, who are creating solutions for physically challenged African children, will be featured on this week’s edition of CNN African Voices Changemakers, sponsored by leading telecommunications service provider, Globacom.

The guests on the programme are a Nigerian prosthetics maker, Crystal Chigbu, and Zimbabwean electronics technician, Tendekayi Katsiga. Both guests have devoted themselves to developing useful support tools that are making a difference for children on the continent.

Tendekayi Katsiga, who had a chance encounter with a 15-year-old boy who could not afford a functional hearing aid, was motivated to establish Deaftronics from a workshop in Botswana from where he manufactured the world’s first solar-powered hearing device complete with battery charger called ‘Solar Ear’.

Crystal Chigbu is a 2002 graduate of Biochemistry from the University of Lagos. She set up her Irede Foundation following her experience caring for a child born with a congenital limb deformity. According to her “seeing other children and families go through the same process without a clear view on how to adapt to the challenges of living with limb loss gave vent to the creation of Irede Foundation which has, since inception, restored hope to children living with loss of limbs by giving them prosthetics”.

Globacom urged viewers to watch African Voices on DSTV channel 401 on Saturday at 9.30 a.m. Repeat broadcast of the programme  will come up on Sunday at 4.30 a..m., 7.30 a.m, 12.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. It would also be repeated on Monday at 4.00 a.m., while a two-part, fifteen-minute repeats will be shown on Tuesday and Wednesday at 6.45 p.m. on both days.