A grandmother of a child with a disability in Rundu's Sauyemwa Informal Settlement is finding it tough to raise her grandson.

Mariana Sindano says she has been looking after the now nine-year-old child since birth.

The grandmother says Mathias Mingandja was born with a brain defect that stunted his growth and affected his arms and legs.

Sindano says she takes Mingandja to the Rundu State Hospital for physiotherapy every week, but he has shown no improvement in his condition.

She says what makes matters worse is the fact that the boy does not eat solid food and lives on Oshitaka, a drink of milk and porridge, and mahangu soft porridge only.

"I am really suffering with this child, and I am not working, and the problem is that he doesn't eat pap, he doesn't eat rice or macaroni, and he cannot even eat meat or potatoes. Except for Oshitaka, I don't have money to buy it every time. Sometimes good Samaritans will give me a little money to buy it because they know my grandson doesn't eat all foods; sometimes he goes to sleep hungry."

She says the N$250 child grant she receives is spent on Oshitaka drinks, and she cannot look for work as she is a full-time caregiver.

Sindano says the mother of the child abandoned him after realising that Mingandja was deformed, while the father is also absent.

She is appealing to good Samaritans to assist her in obtaining a special wheelchair as the child has become too heavy to carry around.

She says the wheelchairs offered at the hospital are too large for his frame and risk further damaging his back.

Mingandja, she says, cannot do anything for himself, whether eating, getting dressed, or attending to the call of nature.