Our Story

“This is witchcraft!” A common statement attributed to any person with any form of disability in Kisii County in the western part of Kenya, East Africa.
James Getengah knows this all too well. At the strike of 4.pm on a warm and sunny afternoon of November 13th in the year 2013, his family welcomed baby Tatianah with celebration and there was optimism as to the person she would ultimately become when grew up.

Their joy turned to worry when Tatianah’s growth and developmental milestones were not as expected. She could not respond to sound, she swallowed food whole without chewing, was not responding to pain stimuli when falling or from cuts and her speech was not developing among other challenges. This worry led James to seek medical attention for baby Tatianah. The initial diagnosis was deafness. This led them to undertake numerous hospital visits in Kisii County and later a referral to Gertrude’s Hospital was made where she was diagnosed with autism. Tatianah was booked for therapy every fortnight at Gertrude’s Hospital in Nairobi. This proved very costly. The financial and physical strain to the family quickly became unbearable – more so to a three-year-old child. This necessitated him to seek a local solution within Kisii County at the level 5 hospital. The facilities at the level 5 hospital were not comprehensive to cater for the full spectrum of needs that an autistic child such as Tatianah had.

He opted to team up with other parents that were facing the same challenge to set up a facility to cater for the needs of their autistic children – Dazzling Center for Autism. It quickly became very clear, that the biggest hurdle they would have to overcome, was the cultural misconception around autism. Parents hid their autistic children from the public that would shun them as bewitched. This led men to abandon their families due to this misconception, leaving their wives to fend for the family and contend with an even tougher burden of catering for an autistic child.

“If I died today, my prayer is that I die with my daughter because
I cannot see her surviving and thriving on her own.” These were James’ words to echo the fear of every parent with an autistic child.