Time for more Gifts of Mobility in 2015!

Gifts of Mobility in time for Christmas in Thailand

Yesterday, just in time for Christmas and the New Year, we delivered both adult Pet carts and pull Pet carts to the Mae Sai Thailand Disabled Association run entirely by disabled persons living along the Thai border with Burma. The Association (under their supervision) will distribute the pull carts to rural area clinics that provide medical services to local disabled residents. The adult Pet carts were delivered in person as can be seen in the enclosed photos. We were very happy to support this effort as it is entirely non government and is organized by the disabled themselves. It was not an easy task to transport and assemble all these mobility aids, but the group did a spendid job using volunteers and members. One of the adult chairs had to be dis-assembled on the spot to get it to fit into a Suzuki compact 5 door car, but with considerable trial and error, we got all the parts safely inside so the cart could travel to the distant home of the disabled user. The disabilities varied from paraplegia to dystrophy to birth defect to stroke. Please extend our thanks and warm holiday wishes to everyone at PET who so wonderfully support this work.

Don Willcox
Foundation To Encourage The Potential of Disabled Persons

Wheelchairs That Work Anywhere (3:26 video)

Originally posted at http://www.umc.org/how-we-serve/wheelchairs-that-work-anywhere

4 video snippets – Your Gifts of Mobility in Mungeli India

The rest of the story…

“Oh, if I could have …”

Ntombikayise – PET IN-DeMotte with The Luke Commission

“Oh, if I could have one of those…” said Ntombikayise, glancing longingly at a PET cart being assembled at a Luke Commission outreach.

Ntombikayise Noma Matsenjwa could not walk. She was born with club feet that were never corrected, although they could have been fixed if Ntombikayise’s family had money, or been closer to medical care.

She crawled on her hands and knees. Her father bought her soccer shin guards in Johannesburg to protect her knees, and she wore shoes on her hands. She seldom saw her father—he lived in South Africa.

…

How did Ntombikayise get food and necessities? She shook her head slightly, looked down, and answered: “I buy and sell Nik-Naks (small bags of chips).” But that was for another day, another time.

This day, Ntombikayise received her PET and learned how to drive it. “Watch me!” she said, as she pedaled the cart with her strong arms and hands.

When she left the outreach, it was with a grin and a wave, as she called back “I will go everywhere now!”