Kenya’s Wycliffe Kepha Anyanzwa believes that everything happens for a reason. There is no lip service there; that is the man who could turn his disability into a story of success.

Born as a normal child in the town of Kakamega in 1955, Wycliffe suffered from suffered from severe stomach ache when he was eight. The local hospitals failed to diagnose the problems that he was flown to the Kenyatta National Hospital for further treatment by the doctors who were in a partnership program with the Ministry of Education at the time.

A white doctor gave him an injection and the problems disappeared despite his alarm after being told that he could have died had he come later. Yet the case was far from being over. Shortly after, Wycliffe was struck by paralysis over his legs. He soon learned that the syringe used by the doctor was used before on a polio sufferer—which was transferred to him. And there had been no cure of the disease.

There he was. When sick people mostly are healed after visiting a hospital, Wycliffe’s experience was a little bit different. “I walked into a hospital; came out a cripple and my life has never been the same again,” he recalled. His father, a devoted Christian, decided to forgive and forget. He was afterwards taken to traditional doctors, other hospitals and prayer sessions. But there was no cure.

After finishing his elementary, Wycliffe had to face more challenges as he went to a normal boy’s boarding school where he was the only disabled student. As the consequence, he had to lean on other students to wheel him around. That was not easy. He often could not attend his classes when there was no one to help him climbing the stairs. His grades were not so impressive, except for the language class. He spent most of his time reading literature which resulted in winning various awards from speaking contests.

In 1971 he received a motorized wheelchair from the Association for the Physically Handicapped when his father passed away. He fell in love with it and was shortly trained as a leatherwork technician by the same association. With his knowledge, somehow he managed to modify his wheelchair by installing bearings to increase its range of mobility. In 1975, Scot visitors sponsored him for six-month training in mobility engineering to Sweden, along with students from twenty other countries in Africa.

Then life became kinder for him after returning. He was able to hire ten employees to start manufacturing mechanical wheelchairs, tri-cycles and motorbikes, which would be very useful for the physically handicapped. The business went very well that the Swedish Board of Transport soon hired him as an instructor for seminars in the UK, USA and Sweden.

But he did not stop there. He was then modified his car to get his own driving license. It was very difficult. At the point he realized that people must be independent no matter what. That was when he began to hold seminars to encourage other handicapped people to strive for their independence. “In my experience, that is the only way you can change people’s attitudes
towards you. As long as you are dependent on people for your upkeep, they will look down on you. I advocated financial empowerment as the only way to earn respect,” he said.

Wycliffe is now the chairman of the Kenya Society for the Physically Handicapped, and also the administrator of Star Disability Training Centre—set up in 2003 to assist the physically handicapped.

“I have no bitterness over my disability as it has motivated me to succeed in life. How many able- bodied people have what I have? My desire now is to champion the cause of the physically handicapped and to inspire them to view themselves as victors rather than victims,” he explained, ended his story.