Beyond Barriers: Honoring the Dreams of Girls Living with Spina Bifida
Around the world, hundreds of thousands of babies are born each year with neural tube defects like Spina Bifida, which occurs when the spine and spinal cord don’t develop properly within the first month of pregnancy, often before a woman even knows she’s expecting.
Every child born with Spina Bifida has a story uniquely their own. For some, the impact of the condition is mild. For others, it can mean paralysis, incontinence, or lifelong medical care. In too many parts of the world, the greatest challenge isn’t the condition itself — it’s society’s response to it.
Although global awareness and advocacy for disability rights are growing, stigma and misinformation remain deeply rooted. Around the world, children born with disabilities are still too often hidden from view, denied education, and excluded from community life as a result of misunderstanding and silence.
Yet behind that silence are dreams and dreamers waiting to be seen.
This Spina Bifida Awareness Month, we honor those dreams and the growing movement across Tanzania to ensure that every child, regardless of ability, has the chance to learn, to belong, and to lead a life filled with possibility.
The Reality for Girls with Disabilities
For girls born with disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa, the barriers are even greater. Poverty, gender inequality, and lack of access to assistive devices combine to create a cycle of exclusion that begins early and is hard to break.
According to the World Bank and UNICEF, children with disabilities are twice as likely to be out of school, and girls with disabilities face the highest rates of exclusion of all. Many are kept at home for fear of ridicule or because schools aren’t equipped to accommodate their needs. Without education, they are at an increased risk of violence, dependency, and lifelong poverty.
These are not only statistics; they are stories of quieted voices, and untapped potential. Because behind every figure is a child with a dream. A girl like Faraja, who aspires to be an auditor; Debora and Upendo, who dream of becoming accountants; Anna, who dreams of becoming president.
Not long ago, those dreams might have been dismissed as impossible. But possibility found them through the compassion of Save the Rain , a nonprofit organization that has been working in the northern region of Tanzania for over 20 years.
A Journey Toward Inclusion
For Faraja, the journey began with a knock at the door.
Until that day, her world was no larger than the home she shared with her parents, where she spent her days dragging her body with her arms across the floor. She had never been to school. Never owned a wheelchair. Never met another child with a disability. Never believed she could.
That changed when the team at Save the Rain provided a wheelchair and persuaded the local school to open its doors. With this act of kindness, Save the Rain didn’t just give Faraja mobility, they gave her access to a world she’d only dreamed of, one filled with movement, learning, and belonging.
Debora, Upendo, and Anna’s stories followed a similar path, stories of invisibility, and being seen for the first time. Once hidden, they now moved freely down school corridors, their laughter echoing alongside their classmates. Together, they showed what happens when a community decides that all children belong.
Now, that belief has taken root at the SEGA Girls’ School, where inclusion isn’t an afterthought, it’s a value lived every day. Since 2023, in partnership with Save the Rain, SEGA has opened its doors to these four students with Spina Bifida. Thanks to the support of the Arthur B. Schultz Foundation, Someone Else’s Child, and the Spina Bifida Foundation of New England, Nurturing Minds and SEGA are ensuring that every girl, regardless of ability, has access to education, housing, and the medical support she needs to thrive.
At SEGA, accessibility means more than wheelchair ramps or adaptive bathrooms; it means belonging, peers who cheer each other on, teachers who adapt lessons without question, and a campus where every girl has the space, and the safety, to dream big.
Today, Anna, Debora, Faraja, and Upendo are thriving, finally experiencing the joy of being defined not by what they cannot do, but by what they can become: future accountants, presidents, and auditors in the making. In SEGA’s nurturing and rigorous learning environment, 100% of their healthcare, transportation, and daily living needs are supported by dedicated staff and qualified medical professionals. Their English-speaking and writing skills continue to grow, and with each passing day, so does their confidence in the classroom, among their peers, and in themselves.
They are, in every sense, proof of what happens when access meets belief!
The Power of Being Seen
In 2025, disability remains misunderstood, often seen as a limitation rather than a facet of human diversity. That’s why when a girl with Spina Bifida enters into a classroom and opens her notebook, she challenges that perception. When she raises her hand to answer a question, she expands what her community believes is possible.
Each time Faraja, Debora, Anna, or Upendo cross a threshold once closed to them, they open doors for countless others. Their courage does more than defy stigma; it redefines what inclusion looks like.
Yet, true inclusion demands more than admiration—it requires action, unfolding through small acts of courage: when a teacher welcomes a student others might have turned away, when a community builds a ramp, when schools like SEGA choose to model a different future, one where every girl belongs.
This Spina Bifida Awareness Month, we celebrate those moments of change. We celebrate the strength of girls whose dreams refuse to be contained by circumstance.
Because every dream deserves a chance to be seen.
And every child — regardless of ability — deserves a world that makes space for them to rise.
Join us in championing accessibility, education, and opportunity for every girl with a dream. Share this blog to raise awareness about Spina Bifida or visit the Spina Bifida Association to learn more.