Babita’s ride of hope

Babita Uraun is 10. She is full of energy, is fond of singing and loves spending time with toddlers at the Early Child Development Centre (ECD) located near her home in Sunsari. Coming to the ECD and sending the day gives her a space where she can escape from the challenges that come with her leg disability.
Since Babita had a leg disability by birth, it refrained her from actively moving around like other children of her age. But that didn’t repress her zeal to study. She always told her parents that she wanted to go to school. Babita’s parents are financially poor and don’t own any land and they both work as daily wage labourers.
The only nearby primary school is located a kilometer away from her home, so it was physically not possible for her to go to school without any proper support. Her father shared that if he goes to drop his daughter at school and pick her up, he would lose time to earn his daily wages. That would make it even more difficult for him to provide food for his children. So, there was no hope of her being enrolled in a school.
With no options left, Babita just kept going to the ECD and helping out as she found great joy in spending time with the kids there.
Despite the hurdles put on her way, a ray of hope emerged when Babita received a Mobility Cart provided by UMN.
After the distribution Babita proudly rides her cart around her village. Life is no longer restricted to her house and the ECD in the neighborhood. But most important of all, Babita can now go to school all by herself with a little support from her sister by riding on her brand new colourful Mobility Cart.
From United Mission to Nepal:
So far, 29 Mobility Carts were distributed in Sunsari, 50 in Kapilvastu and Doti will be planning this by July 2018. With an aim of ensuring that the carts are used correctly, a training on basic cart orientation and cart assembling was provided to those UMN partners that run the disability projects, including UMN officers and mechanics from the districts.
In 2019, partners will also provide monitoring support to the cart users by visiting their families and houses in their communities.