Apollo Odhiambo is a young man with two small children aged 4 and 7yrs. They live in the Nyalenda slum on the edge of Kisumu, Western Kenya in a tiny mud-and-wattle house surrounded by other tiny houses and with streams of filthy water running outside the door and rubbish strewn all around. There is no clean running water or electricity.
Apollo had a job as a motorbike taxi until he was caught up in the post-election violence at the beginning of the year. Apollo was shot through the head, the bullet entering through the back of his brain and exiting through the frontal lobe. He lived to tell the tale but is left paralyzed down one side, epileptic and with speech problems. His wife is doing her best to generate income through her small business, but they can no longer pay the nursery school fees for the younger child nor the primary school expenses for the older one. Apollo goes to the provincial hospital for physiotherapy twice a week – he has to pay for this along with the transport to get him there. He has not received a shilling in compensation.
Apollo and his family will benefit from KOFUP funding to the Pandipieri Healthcare Programme which will make sure that his children go to school and get the education that will give them hope for a better future.