Richard Harris and his wife Rachel have been on an epic adventure. In early May 2011 they left their Torquay home, took a one-way flight to South Africa, got in to their specially adapted Land Rover and drove it some 18,000 miles back to the UK over the course of the rest of the year. In the process, they raised over £4000 for Motivation. And if that’s not enough, now Richard has agreed to guest-blog for us…

The adventure begins: Richard and Rachel in South Africa

“Weeks after returning to the UK, it’s still not wholly sunk in that I’ve driven the length of Africa!

Our route took us through Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park in South Africa, into the sparse and spectacular wilderness of Namibia, briefly into ‘Africa’s success story’ Botswana, the amazingly friendly and beautiful Zimbabwe, the rural wilderness havens of Zambia, through Malawi and past its sea scaled lake, into Tanzania with its wonderful mountains and rolling grassy plains, archetypal Kenya including chaotic and frenetic Nairobi, on to remote, rocky, desolate Lake Turkana and through fertile Ethiopia by way of the Omo Valley, ultimately the home leg, from Addis, the deserts of North Sudan and the antiquities of Egypt’s Nile Valley. The route out of Africa involved a RoRo ship to Italy for the Land Rover and flights for us to meet it.

Not one flat tyre!

When planning our trip we’d been determined to adhere to the common, but well-founded cliché of needing to ‘give something back to Africa’. After much research, we decided to support Motivation.

We chose Motivation because of the obvious resonance with my spinal cord injury personal history and my professional background in occupational therapy. Additionally, the charity has supported several organisations in Eastern Africa along our route. To boot, like us they’re based in the South West and on visiting them we were impressed by the personable welcome and friendly efficiency emanating from all at the Backwell office. There, we arranged to meet up with one of Motivation’s partners, the Kilimanjaro Association of the Spinal Injured (KASI) in Tanzania.

Richard and the KASI crew: Prosper, Faustina, Zacharia and Hilda

We met Faustina Urassa from KASI and the organisation’s directors Zacharia Massawe, Hilder Shoo and Prosper Kiluwa at the modest KASI office in Moshi. All posts are voluntary and the committee is elected by the 240 or so members in the Kilimanjaro area.

Supported by Motivation over a number of years, KASI acts as a model for other fledgling self-help groups in Tanzania. Their scope is wide and includes visiting newly injured people in hospital and later at home, educating them and their families about living with a disability, as well as providing peer group training in week-long ‘camps’.

It is sobering to see how hard people need to work to approach standards which are taken as rights in the UK. Prosper told us that Dala Dalas (minibus taxis) will not take wheelchairs and buses charge double fares. Consequently he gets a taxi at $10 (USD) from his house to the office. It was something else to think about – people had travelled in at significant personal expense, just to welcome us.

With simple, well-informed interventions KASI is saving lives, improving outcomes and raising awareness in communities. Their optimism, professionalism, altruism and enthusiasm is incredible.

Even though KASI is struggling with inflationary costs, increasing demand and competing governmental agendas, the effect their efforts have on well-being, survival and successful integration with communities is plain to see.

This was brought home to me later in the trip when we reached Addis Ababa. Here it seems there is currently little to no support for many people with disabilities. It is not uncommon to see paraplegics, without wheelchairs, dragging themselves along the pavements, with nothing but a pair of discarded flip-flops on their hands as their only aid.

Victoria Falls: 'absolutely gob-smacking'

The truth is that life in developing countries can be brutally harsh when something like disability strikes. One rehabilitation manager told us about the dilemma of how to get people to focus on rehabilitation, when their real and pressing concern is getting enough to eat. “We are often dealing with the poorest of the poor, and I really mean that,” she said.

For the wonderful privilege of witnessing Africa’s obvious attractions, there is a starker learning. It makes sense for those who can to help those who get struck by life’s random lightning. People such as the guys at KASI are bound to be those most motivated to develop their own local, sustainable, and relevant solutions. Motivation is a great channel to help give disabled people in the developing world just the chance they need.”

You can read more about Richard and Rachel’s trip on their website.