Dr. Zachary Kimotho, popularly know as Zack, has to date traveled a painful distance of 58.45km on a wheelchair. Zack is to travel a distance of about 4,000km halfway across the continent, from Kenya to South Africa, to the nearest Spinal Injury Trauma & Rehabilitation Centre.

Zack, 44, has been confined in a wheelchair for the last 8 years after an aborted carjacking that left him with a severe bullet wound. The Veterinary Doctor hopes to convince Kenyans to contribute KSh250 million (US$2.9 million) towards the construction of a Trauma and Rehabilitation Centre for spinal injury victims. He has only raised KSh54 million (about US$635,000) to date.

A widower and father of one son, Zack, won’t stop his daunting journey until Kenyan’s raise the amount. Zack and His Excellency Hon. Mwai Kibaki, Kenya's President, have something in common.

A few weeks before the elections in 2002, His Excellency Hon. Mwai Kibaki was involved in a car accident and suffered serious injuries. Although he was confined to a wheelchair, he continued his campaign and easily defeated his opponent, Uhuru Kenyatta to become Kenya's Third President.

I'm thus petitioning His Excellency Hon. Mwai Kibaki to mobilize Government goodwill and State resources to help make Zack's campaign on a wheelchair successful, like he mobilized the Kenyan Public on a wheelchair to make his Presidential bid a success. Remember Your Excellency, this Rehab Centre is for the Public Good.

Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile network operator has offered its M-PESA platform, a mobile-phone based payment and money transfer service, to the noble cause and a KSh15 million (US$176,000) donation to boot.

But the Kenyan Paraplegic Organization (KPO), under whose aegis Zack is taking the strenuous odyssey, will need more than Safaricom’s benevolence to put up the rehab centre or to Bring Zack Back Home. www.bringzackbackhome.com

To end Zack’s punishing road trip, KPO is predominantly banking on 14.9 million M-PESA subscribers of the 19 million customers to weigh in and contribute from as little as one Kenya shilling to KSh10 daily (US$0.11) for 60 days—the period within which Safaricom has donated its M-PESA service to the cause.

“I’m appealing to the public to donate money through M-PESA by dialing *555# on their cell phone or sending money to M-PESA pay bill no 522500,” says Zack.

Panting and his face dripping with sweat, the seemingly weary man quips, “it’s either a rehab centre here at home or going to South Africa on a wheelchair,” quips Zack. The smile and determination may for some time veil his anguish, but like physical reserves, willpower can also get depleted.

Since he was flagged off on 9th June 2012 under Nairobi’s scorching sun by a bemused public, Zack has wheeled more than 50kms to Kajiado, a small town in the outskirts of Kenya's capital.

But with the donations trickling in, almost at the same pace his wheelchair can gather pace, his road trip might be long-drawn and painful as his first pair of gloves is quickly wearing out from pushing his wheelchair.

Zack still has 99 percent of the distance to South Africa to cover and 82 percent of the targeted funds to mobilise.

With the funds lazily streaming in, Zack might just get to South Africa before Kenyans can raise (US$2.9 million). It is not that his compatriots are averse to giving, but rather, the rampant apathy towards the plight of paraplegics in the country.

Kenyans are today more prone to spinal injuries than ever.
The country’s statistics indicate that over 50,000 people are injured every year in road accidents, and over 15,000 of them are left with spinal cord injuries each year. The cost of travelling, treatment and rehabilitation at the nearest facility in South Africa is about KSh10 million (US$117,000), a cost too high for most Kenyans.

“Every day, hundreds of lives are lost, maimed and or left with disability due to the rampant road accidents in Kenya. Statistics indicate that over fifty fatal road accidents have been reported in January this year on the Chinese-built Thika Super-Highway alone,” says Abbas Gullet, the Secretary General, Kenya Red Cross.

Presently, there is only one specialized hospital in Kenya with a wanting bed capacity of 35 patients. The hospital, whose core mandate is to offer medical treatment to spinal injury victims, does just that. It undertakes medical procedures at acute stage to heal the injury and stabilize the patient.

Rehabilitation on the other hand, what KPO seeks to offer through the Rehabilitation and Trauma Center, “primarily concerns prevention of secondary complications, maximization of physical functioning and reintegration of persons with a spinal injury into the community,” says Mwaura Ngaari, a Director of KPO.

Spinal cord injury victims contend with the weight of depression, inaccessible buildings, loss of some of bodily functions, loss of livelihood, among others. More over, some victims succumb to persistent fatal medical complications like bed sores, pressure sores and back pain. Loss of control of bowel movement and urine passage are also common.