This video show various footage taken from Afghanistan as Canada teams up to distribute wheelchairs there.
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This slideshow of images from a distribution of wheelchairs in Afghanistan portrays the strong feelings of hope in Afghanistan.
Afghan Ambassador Omar Samad expressed his appreciation to Wheelchair Foundation of Canada for their recent assistance and delivery of 560 wheelchairs for disabled Afghans in the province of Kandahar.
In a phone talk with Ms. Christiana Flessner, Executive Director of the Foundation, Monday, Amb. Samad thanked her and all the donors for the valuable and life-changing humanitarian help.
Ms. Flessner, whose organization in several countries delivers thousands of wheelchairs yearly to the needy, said that the wheelchairs will help the recipients with mobility to seek jobs, education and a better quality life.
Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence announced last week that Canadian forces in Kandahar have started to distribute the aid to Afghan recipients.
The Afghan Ambassador also expressed hope for the continuation of the Afghan wheelchair program through fundraising and other activities to continue to promote the initiative in the South as well as across other regions of Afghanistan.
It is estimated that one in five Afghan adult males is maimed by decades of warfare and millions of landmines and un-exploded ordinances. Each Chinese-made wheelchairs full cost amounts to CAN $110.
For more information or donation pledges, please refer to http://wheelchairfoundation.ca
A gift of mobility has been delivered by Canada in the form of 560 wheelchairs to a country torn by war and littered with landmines.
It’s common to see Afghan people of all ages walking on crutches, having lost a leg after stepping on an improvised explosive device. There are thousands of undetected landmines in Afghanistan – many dating back to the 10-year war against the Soviets that ended in 1989.
There is other evidence of the Soviet presence just a kilometre from Camp Shirzai, home to the Afghan National Army. Dozens of Soviet-era tanks – many now painted with graffiti – remain behind barbed wire in a compound, left behind in the rapid Soviet withdrawal from the area.
Russ Hiebert, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Defence, made the presentation of the wheelchairs on Thursday.
“The independence provided by these rugged wheelchairs provides previously unimagined freedom to the recipients,” said the Surrey, B.C., member of Parliament. Hiebert said the executive director of Wheelchairs Federation Canada, one of his constituents, spearheaded the drive to obtain the chairs.
“I’m here to recognize the mostly generous Canadians who have chosen to send donations large and small, to meet the needs of the Afghan people,” he said in a 12-minute address.
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“Like these many generous Canadians, our soldiers and Provincial Reconstruction Team are doing development work without seeking public recognition,” Hiebert added.
During his speech and that of the local doctor, an elderly Afghan man laid quietly in a hospital bed, wrapped in a colourful Afghan blanket. He had lost a leg in a suicide bombing, and was obviously weak.
Hiebert shook hands with the man and talked to him through an interpreter, and despite the difficulties involved, the victim was helped into a wheelchair where he slumped in exhaustion.
“As soon as I fix my arm I will be able to ride it,” said the man, identified simply as Mr. Ramazan by the interpreter.
“I was injured in the last suicide attack in Kandahar city. I thought somebody had shot at me. I lost my leg and hurt my arm in the suicide attack.”
Ramazan had just one wish for the future.
“We need peace in Afghanistan and no fighting, where things are going to happen,” he said.
The doctor from Kandahar’s Mir Weis hospital, Dr. Adbul Qaium Pakhala, told reporters that in 2005, there were 5,176 Afghan civilians who had amputations as a result of fighting or vehicle accidents.
He said more aid like the wheelchairs was desperately needed.
Courtesy of CBC News
Canadian troops in Southern Afghanistan recently hand-delivered 560 brand-new wheelchairs to Afghan citizens with physical disabilities. In a ceremony held at Camp Shirzai yesterday Surrey MP Russ Hiebert, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, thanked those involved in the project and recognized South Surrey resident and Executive Director of Wheelchair Foundation Canada, Christiana Flessner, for spearheading the project.
The aid project Operation Mobility was a joint effort between Wheelchair Foundation Canada and the Ministry of National Defence. Impetus for the project came via an initial donation of 100 wheelchairs by an anonymous donor, himself a veteran of WWII, in British Columbia, and grew quickly through the strong support from Rotary Clubs across the province.
In Afghanistan, two in ten adult men have lost legs to landmines or unexploded ordnance left over from conflicts in the past several decades, said Flessner. Through this hands-on delivery of life changing wheelchairs, our donors and soldiers are helping them regain their lives in an immediate and very tangible way.
Flessner continued, These wheelchairs will also allow physically disabled children to go to school, adults to go to work to provide for their families, and the elderly to get out of a bed that may have been their only existence for years, to now go outside and sit in the sun.
Wheelchair Foundation Canada is part of the global Wheelchair Foundation network that includes branches in the U.S., U.K., Australia & China. To date, over 550,000 new wheelchairs have been delivered in over 145 countries to physically disabled people that are without the means to acquire a wheelchair; more than 5,800 have been delivered so far in Afghanistan. A wheelchair delivers hope, mobility, freedom, independence and dignity.
For more information about how to sponsor wheelchairs for Canadian troops to deliver in Afghanistan, please visit www.wheelchairfoundation.ca or call toll free (866) 666-2411.
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