The Gift of Shoes

Biratnagar Orthopedic Shoes

Rob and I flew down to Biratnagar last Tuesday, March 16th to visit some Rotary Club to Club projects and visit future Rotary District members for the upcoming years to ensure that the Rotary Nepal Disability Education Awareness proceeds with their support. Biratnagar is a city in the Terai ( the plain region) closest to the Indian border. It is only 235 ft above sea level and is about 10 degrees warmer than Kathmandu in the hilly region. Nirmala Gyawali (one of our spokespersons of the program) met us there to join us on our journey.

Our first stop was the orthopedic shoe making workshop staffed by 2 recently trained persons with a disability. This project is supported by both RC Biratnagar downtown (Rotarian Dr Mamata Varna) and RC Duvall (Rotarian Jeetu Falodia). The workshop is housed in a building for prosthetic and leg brace manufacturing. he owners had provided the space for free.

What a wonderful cooperative relationship they have with the Rotary Club and it has plans to grow too! They are expecting to further improve the skill level of the workers to enable the production of school shoes. Its sales will subsidize the cost of the orthopedic shoes they can provide to very poor families. Today the shoes cost between 120 to 200 rupees.

This project will provide the needs for the physical handicapped children in the Terai region and avoid the 9 hour trip to Kathmandu. All over the 7 Districts of this campaign, Club to Club projects are underway. There have been 20 projects matched to clubs in District 5030 to date totaling $175,000 dollars worth of tangible benefits for the disabled. How wonderful it is to see this evidence of sustainability, local Rotarians thinking of what their community needs and continuing to include them in their service projects.