Mombasa Catholic Archbishop Martin Kivuva, APDK CEO Anthony Nzuki, Gehard Junguinger and his wife Helga cut a cake at the APDK Rehabilitation Clinic in Port Reitz on Tuesday / BRIAN OTIENO

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Gehard Junginger and APDK Coast regional manager Derric Adeya at the APDK Rehabilitation Clinic in Port Reitz on Tuesday / BRIAN OTIENO

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Helga Junginger offers a cake to a Kenyan child at the APDK Rehabilitation Clinic in Port Reitz on Tuesday / BRIAN OTIENO





It was supposed to be a relaxing vacation but it ended up being a life-changing adventure not only for themselves but also for more than 12,000 children in Kenya.

Fifty years ago, Helga Junginger and her husband Gehard made their first trip to Kenya.  

“We had a little child at home. She was half a year old. At first, I didn’t want to come, telling my husband he was crazy to think I would leave my young child and go on vacation.

But my mother insisted she would take care of her granddaughter just so I could have a vacation,” Helga said.

The German couple was booked at the African Safari Club in Mombasa, where they met an Indian man with his family.

This Indian, a member of the Rotary Club, invited the two to visit an institution where they would help suffering children by making their lives better and more comfortable.

“He asked if we were interested, and my husband is interested in everything. So, we came here,” Helga said.

Speaking on Tuesday during the commemoration of 50 years of support for the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya rehabilitation clinic in Port Reitz, Helga said the sight of the children with disability touched her heart.

“We had a child at home, healthy and happy, and here there were others, suffering and needing help. That’s the reason we started to help,” she said.

Gehard, being the president of the Jugendclub Weingarten (Youth Club) in Germany, rallied friends and family from across the world to donate funds to help the children in Kenya.

“We got money from as far as France and we sold items in winter time during the Christmas market, all of which we directed to the APDK to help the children with disability,” Helga said.

Since then, the Junginger family and the Jugenclub Weingarten became donors for the rehabilitation centre, helping children with disability walk again, giving them a shot at normal lives.

Over the years, the drive became bigger.

Helga, who has been to Kenya a few times more, said there has been a remarkable change at the rehab clinic.

On Tuesday, they gave the APDK rehabilitation clinic a 100,000-euro cheque (about Sh15.03 million).

APDK Coast regional manager Derrick Adeya said children with disability in Kenya have a big challenge because they cannot compete with other.

“Right now, even the able-bodied young men are getting a problem finding employment. Now imagine a disabled child,” Adeya said.

Disability, coupled with poverty, makes life even harder for the children.

“That’s why you usually see most mothers and families abandon them because of poverty. It becomes very difficult for them, first in mobility, education and now due to negligence from the community,” Adeya said.

Over the last five years, the German youth club has helped APDK do about 750 corrective surgeries, averaging about 150 a year.

“Now, imagine the other years. So, we are talking about 10,000 or 12,000 direct surgeries. Now, we make sure those surgeries heal and we take them back to school,” Adeya said.

On Tuesday, Helga and Gehard brought with them 23 other friends and family to the APDK rehabilitation clinic for the 50-year commemoration.

The Germans mingled with the children with success stories shared by alumni of the clinic, where children stay for up to six years in rehabilitation.

Adeya said the clinic runs solely on donations, because it does not have any income generation activity, and there is donor fatigue.

“We depend on different donors to help us in different aspects. Jugenclub is helping us in surgeries and other rehabilitative matters.

We need people to help us when it comes to food, repairs, materials, diapers, medication and all that. We are finding it difficult to cope now with donor fatigue creeping in,” he said.

The clinic has 46 children in the wards, with an average use of about Sh80,000 a per day per child day when there are surgeries and about Sh12,000 without surgeries.

The national government used to help the clinic with human resource support but this was pulled out at the advent of devolution.

“Now, we have to hire our own staff,” Adeya said, adding that there are more than 40 staff members.