Lake Victoria Disability Centre is based in the small lakeside town of Musoma, located on the shores of Lake Victoria in the Mara region of Tanzania, East Africa.

The town’s proximity to the lake and the Serengeti national park means that a significant proportion of the local population is involved in the fishing and tourism industries, securing a form of dependable albeit seasonal income for a proportion of the urban population.

However, the isolated rural majority across Mara continue to suffer from abject poverty. This is due to an absence of employment opportunities, ill health caused by malnutrition, and too few schools and affordable health centres.

One in 10 people in Tanzania are disabled – 3,456,900 people suffer from a physical, mental, hearing or visual impairment.

There are a number of causes that have resulted in this statistic being so high, some of which are; catching malaria or meningitis as a baby, unprofessional administration of herbal medicine, mishandling at birth in deliveries done in the local areas, trachoma, to name a few.

Tanzania has very few facilities or support for addressing the issue of disabilities and basic aids such as wheelchairs, crutches and hearing aids are expensive and hard to come by. Such aids are crucial for anyone with a disability who wants independence, yet due to the intense poverty of Tanzania, only a minority can afford them. People with disabilities are often deprived of basic human rights such as an education and healthcare. 85% of the disabled population in Mara do not have an education past that of primary school, 50% of which have never attended school at all.