Bombing victim becomes first blind man to finish 900km race to raise funds for visually impaired children
A Kenyan has become the first blind man in the world to finish the 900km Old Mutual JoBerg2c Mountain Biking race held in South Africa.
Mr Douglas Sidialo, who lost his eyesight as a result of the US Embassy bombing in Nairobi in 1998 and piloted by John Mwangi Kiriko, participated in the race organised to raise ($2 million) Ksh170 million to help blind children and those with visual impairment in Africa.
This earned Sidialo Paolo Belramo Memorial Award for Courage in the Face of Adversity and Free Entry to participate the 2016 Kiwi Crusade seven-day Mountain biking Stage Race in Aukland, New Zealand.
Sidialo, 45, was among 800 South Africans and over 100 mountain bikers from 20 countries who participated in the nine-day trip across South Africa organised by Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Africa (KBTA) from 24th of April, 2015.
The Old Mutual JoBerg2c Race traversed four provinces, cutting across 100 remote farms, via Drakensberg Mountain towards South Durban at the Indian Ocean. The race, supported by Old Mutual Africa and Coca-Cola, was aimed at raising money and awareness for causes close to the riders’ hearts.
In 2005, Sidialo became the first blind African to reach the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro’s Uhuru Peak, thereby becoming one of the key founders of Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Africa (KBTA), a charitable trust registered in Kenya in 2014 to empower the visually impaired & blind school children in Africa.
The trust was conceived after the 2005 Mt. Kilimanjaro climb by 26 participants, eight of whom were totally blind. Led by Unilever CEO Paul Polman and Eric Weihenmayer, the team, including Sidialo, decided to fundraise to support needy school children around Arusha with braille literacy.
Since then thousands of school children in East Africa have benefitted from the initiative. Sidialo is piloted by John Mwangi Kiriko, the reigning Commonwealth Junior champion Kenya.
“Douglas’ participation in this event resonates well with KBTA’s objectives and goals of attaining independence, good quality of life, strength, equal opportunities and indeed proves that ‘disability is not inability’,” says Dr. Moses Mwaniki, Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Director. “Successful completion of the race adds to the many accolades that Douglas has defended over the years.”
He said as a board member of KBTA, Sidialo has contributed immensely to forward-moving policies of governance, fundraising and institutional development. The fundraising comes at a time when KBTA plans to extend its services to other resource-scarce countries like Malawi, Ethiopia and Somali, among others.
“In these countries, visually impaired and blind school sector-support is at its lowest ebb, with Somali (a war torn country) having no single donor or any other support within its borders, in spite of having approximately 1,560 registered visually impaired children of school-going age,” He said.
In East Africa, the ratio of machine to child still hangs at around 1:3 despite the efforts in-put by the few players in the sector. This still leaves a huge gap in achieving a 1:1 ratio, considering that one Perkins Braille Machine retails at roughly $ 900.
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