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Disables on the pick of Mount Kenya

Initiative by Fondazione Fontana and L'Arche Nyahururu

17-09-2019 by redazione

To see Musa, a 27-year-old disabled Kenyan, planting his country's flag on the historic peak of Lenana Point, at an altitude of 4985 metres on Mount Kenya, hikers on the "Stretching our limits" project must have had the extraordinary scent of historical achievements, not just mountaineering.
The initiative, organized by the association L'Arche Kenya of Nyahururu, which for years has been working with young people with physical and intellectual disabilities with the support of the Fondazione Fontana Onlus of Trento, has brought to the highest mountain in Kenya and the summit that was the scene of one of the most evocative enterprises of Italian mountaineering, four young people with motor and mental problems.
Musa and his companions, assisted by the staff of the association, expert climbers and guides of Kenya Wildlife Service, were transported in modern single-wheeled mountain wheelchairs called "joelette" and also on the shoulder where the slopes did not allow to continue in a normal way.
The company clearly aims to raise public awareness of the problem of disability and how often the people affected are considered only a burden in Kenyan society.
The arrival at Lenana Point symbolically represents the climb of people who face daily obstacles that seem insurmountable to their possibilities. Arche Kenya is a community of family homes for people with intellectual disabilities founded in collaboration with the Saint Martin Centre, founded twenty years ago by a group of Kenyan volunteers led by Don Gabriele Pipinato, an Italian priest who has always worked with the Fontana Foundation.
The company supported in recent days will help the association to start some small businesses (a bread oven, a laundry) that can allow people with disabilities to measure themselves against the world of work and contribute to the livelihood of family homes.
 "We are proud to have participated in this project and to have contributed at a distance to the climb of Mount Kenya - said Pierino Martinelli, Director of the Fondazione Fontana Onlus - in the area of the project, there are almost no opportunities for growth for people with disabilities, especially mental disabilities. They hardly have access to activities outside the private environment. We have proven that the limits are only mental and that one can really go beyond stereotypes. The next challenge is to give them a social and work opportunity, so we need everyone's help. 

TAGS: monte kenyafondazione fontanascalata kenyadisabili kenya

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