Frank, who has cerebral palsy, lives in Kakuma refugee camp, in northern Kenya, which is home to more than 185,000 people. Things are tough enough here for families, and tougher still for those with disabled children. Frank’s mother has recently started to take him to a therapy centre run by the organisation Humanity and Inclusion, which works to improve the living conditions of people with disabilities. Frank’s family fled from violence in Burundi

At the centre, Frank has physiotherapy to relieve his symptoms. Kibet Nicodemus, programme manager, says: ‘Cerebal palsy is the biggest disability [we see in Kakuma] in children under five, along with congenital disabilities. All of these children need long-term care and their parents have other responsibilities that take priority.’ The food aid available is not enough to feed the family, so mothers have to find alternative sources of income. ‘Mothers can’t take the disabled child to the fields or to the place they work so will leave them locked up in their shelters’

Nicodemus says young girls with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse if they are left alone. ‘We are working with mothers to see if we can encourage them to set up a rota of daycare among themselves – to make the system sustainable. Schools in the camps are not inclusive and make no provisions for disabled children. [Those] who could go can’t get there because there is no transport to take them. Discrimination against everyone with disabilities is widespread and we are working with community groups to overcome this stigma’

The very landscape of the camps makes it very challenging for people with disabilities to move around, and so they are often stranded, ‘house-bound’ in the small makeshift shelters

Deborah Mmonga is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She fled the fighting with her five nieces and nephews after her sister died. At the camp, Deborah, who has been disabled since the age of nine, has been given a tricycle to help with her mobility. Her disability means she can’t find work to supplement her basic food ration, and sometimes she and the children go hungry

‘Refugee life is not the best but I am better than when I was at home,’ says Mmonga. She says without her tricycle she would be stuck inside one small room. ‘Now I have freedom,’ she says. ‘I have got training on how I should expect to be treated as a disabled person and that I am a human being like anyone else. I have learned how to deal with it when people treat me badly,’ she adds. ‘Sometimes in the camp there is fighting between different communities and I can’t run away from the violence because of my disability. I get scared I will be targeted’

Samater Mohamed, 37, contracted polio as a baby. He fled Ethiopia with his mother in 2008 after his father and three brothers were killed at their home. After his mother died, he now lives with a friend who helps to look after him

Mohamed is working as a community health worker in the camp, which means he is earning some money. ‘I have also been taught that as a disabled person I have rights and that I don’t need to be called bad names by others and insulted. Now I know how to stand up for myself.’ He wants to study to become a doctor ‘because I know that health is everything to a person – I want to help people who are disabled, so that they don’t have to put up with this humiliation of being discriminated against’

Three-year-old Michael was born with a congenital problem that resulted in a double amputation. Here, his mother helps him put on his prosthetic legs – he also has some physio to help him. The family fled Burundi. ‘Our house was attacked by soldiers one night in 2014,’ says his mother, Jenny. ‘They took everything, burned the house and abducted my husband, who only recently arrived in Kakuma after escaping from them’

The prosthetic legs have changed Michael’s life, says Jenny, ‘because he can now walk like a normal boy – he is very fast on his stumps but he is improving his movement a lot with the plastic legs. He can now stand up, which he couldn’t do before. I hope that Michael in the future will be in school and be educated so that he can become a useful person in society’

Istarlin Hussein, 18, is a refugee from Mogadishu, and speaks English, Swahili and Somali fluently. She was born blind and now has epilepsy. She attended a school for blind people in Somalia before the war intensified, when her family fled to Kenya. Humanity and Inclusion have trained her in how to use a special computer and are helping her to find a job in the camp as a translator

‘I have to be guided by someone to do everything in the camp because life here is not for disabled people like me,’ says Hussein. ‘When I was in school I always wanted to be a teacher or doctor of psychology but now I am not at school I can’t go for these goals – so the only job I can do in the camp is to translate English to Somali or Somali to English.’ She can read braille but says she doesn’t have any braille books to read ‘because there aren’t any in the refugee library here’

Zebidah Monyoncho, from Humanity and Inclusion, fits Grace with a new prosthetic leg at the organisation’s workshop in Kakuma

Achol had to have a leg amputated after being shot in South Sudan. She is waiting to have her prosthetic limb replaced at the workshop

Juma Johanes is from South Sudan and left to escape the fighting. He was born with a disability and struggles to make a living as a cobbler

‘Life here is miserable,’ says Johanes. ‘I live on the side of a road and I rely on people to bring me their shoes to fix them so I can make a living. One of my legs and my foot is totally paralysed and my arms are very painful because of the pressure.’ He has been given a tricycle, which helps him get around, and it has a box attached so he can keep his tools with him. ‘I got a mattress this year, which has made my sleep more comfortable’

Christine Abwel, from Kakuma, contracted polio as a child. As part of a project by local Kenyans to support people with disabilities, Christine had a shop built for her

Abwel says that before the refugees arrived in Kakuma, there was no support from the Kenyan government for people with disabilities. It was only when the NGOs arrived to support the refugees that she also got some help – she was given a wheelchair and assistance with her shop