Indiana Rotarian Assists AIDS Orphan from Uganda
By Peter Schmidtke
Allan
Akamura's friends used to push him to school in a homemade
wheelchair.
Now the 13-year-old from
Uganda, who has cerebral palsy, pedals himself
around on a tricycle through the corridors at
University
Hospital in
Ann Arbor, Michigan,
USA. He received surgery there to correct
problems with his hips, knees, feet, and hands, with help from Ira
Zinman and his club, the Rotary Club of Bloomington North, Indiana.
Allan, who lost his father to AIDS
when he was a year old and now lives with his uncle, attends the
Nyaka
AIDS
Orphans
School in southwestern
Uganda. Zinman became acquainted with him while
working on a documentary about the school.
"I was in Indiana watching footage, and I see kids at the
school walking and running and kicking a ball, and here is this boy
crawling," says Zinman, who was reviewing film from a
cinematographer he had sent to the school for the documentary. "He
didn’t say he wanted to walk or run. He said that when all the
students at the school would stand up to sing or pray, he wanted to
stand up with them."
When Zinman learned that the
medical procedures that could improve Allan's condition were
unavailable in
Uganda, he enlisted the help of the Children
Waiting Everywhere Foundation to lobby University Hospital to provide the surgery free of charge.
Allan flew to Michigan in November for the surgery and is
staying with a host family while he undergoes physical therapy to
build his strength and flexibility and to develop neuromuscular
connections. Doctors are hopeful that he will be able to walk.
In March, Allan's host family took him on a visit the Bloomington
North club, during which he traded smiles and laughs with Zinman and
other club members. The club has contributed $5,000 for travel and
other costs associated with Allan's surgery, and it has committed to
providing $3,000 annually in support of the Nyaka school.
Zinman hopes to accompany Allan
back to
Uganda in mid-November and is planning to shoot
footage of him returning to school. The film will tell the story of
the school and its 260 students, all of whom have lost one or both
of their parents to AIDS, in a country with over one million
children orphaned by the virus.
Click
HERE to view a video clip of Zinman’s
documentary
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