One of the biggest challenges I became aware of is the lack of transportation available for a person in a wheelchair. In Taraz we have something called a social taxi. This allows people with disabilities to receive transportation around town for things such as doctor's visits. However, due to the minimal number of vehicles, each person is only allowed four rides a month. They shared that this is especially difficult for students who are trying to attend University. Some youth have received full scholarships to University, but are unable to attend due to lack of transportation. Being an educator at heart, this challenges me.
We have been able to donate three wheelchairs so far. One to the Youth Invalid Society, the organization in Taraz that operates the social taxis. This wheelchair is a lighter transport chair that should help them as they transport people from one location to the next. This organization gave us the names of two other individuals who were in need of a wheelchair. The first of these wheelchairs went to a man who works for the organization I mentioned in the first paragraph. His wheelchair was in pretty bad shape, so he was a good candidate for one of ours. The second of these wheelchairs was given to a man whose wife is also wheelchair bound. They have two grown daughters. He was sick the day we delivered the wheelchair, so we were only able to meet his wife. I look forward to meeting again with them sometime soon to get to know them better.
It has been fun to begin the process of finding good candidates for our wheelchairs. I am looking forward to touching base with some groups that work with kids so that we can start delivering some wheelchairs to children as well. I'm hoping we will be able to build relationships that will open doors to our work in the future. It will be fun to see where all of this leads.
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