Shopping in Pettah

Today, we went to Pettah to look for the supplies needed for the GAF Livelihood project.  Pettah is a bustling market area of the capital city of Colombo where you can find everything from flowers to refrigerators.  The area consists of wall-to-fall stores and street vendors.  If you’re an aggressive bargain shopper, this place is paradise.  For me, Pettah is way too chaotic, noisy, and congested, but I went there because the stores have the best prices in town.  I was advised not to take out my camera in Pettah, so the pictures here are downloaded from the internet.

Global Abilities Golf Classic and Banquet

Our prototype tuk tuk is almost complete.  This is the first accessible vehicle produced in this country, and it will enable many disabled Sri Lankans to travel in their communities for the first time.  GAF has the funding to build one more, but we hope to build an additional four in Sri Lanka this year.  In addition, we are designing a training program to teach disabled individuals to make crafts and developing a marketplace to sell these items.  The Livelihood Project is slated to begin this summer.  But, these projects need your support!  We are hosting the 1st Global Abilities Golf Classic and Banquet on Friday, June 1st in Mount Laurel, NJ to raise money for our international outreach work.  The online registration will be open soon, but for now, please Save the Date!  Golf begins at 1pm and the dinner begins at 6.  Thank you so much for your support!

Tuk Tuk reborn

It's amazing what a little primer, paint, and a lot of TLC can do.  Our tuk tuk is starting to look new again.

Ready for Painting

By the looks of these pictures, it seems that we have taken a bunch of steps back, but work on the tuk tuk is proceeding well. The accessibility modifications are almost completed. The only design work that remains are fabricating a rack to hold the wheelchair after the passenger transfers onto the tuk tuk seat, and installing seat belts and other hardware. The vehicle we bought is two decades old and spent its life on the harsh Sri Lankan roads, so the tuk tuk needs a lot of cosmetic work. Lalith disassembled all the modifications to correct all the rust areas, dents, and bent and missing metal. The vehicle will be sanded down and ready for painting soon.

tragedy in the village

Late last week, Madu (our driver) was unable to help us for a day.  He was helping with funeral arrangements for the child of a neighbor.  The baby was born three months ago, but he never left the hospital because he hadn’t fully developed part of his digestive tract.  Most families in Sri Lanka do not have the money to pay for ultrasounds or other tests during pregnancy, and most general hospitals are not as well equipped as they could be to handle cases like this.  Had there been more tests, the complication might have been discovered in time to address.  And had the hospital the proper resources to correct the problem, Madu might not have had to help his neighbor bury her three-month-old baby.  This is not an extraordinarily rare event here.  This is a harsh reality of life in Sri Lanka.

Colonel Manatunga Pays us a Visit

When GAF visited Sri Lanka last summer, we met with over a dozen local and international organizations working with the disabled community here.  From these, we identified three potential partners that we can collaborate with to implement our projects.  The first of these organizations is the army rehabilitation hospital at Ragama.  Every soldier at this facility is a casualty of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war that lasted 26 years.  Yesterday we stopped by Ragama to speak with the base commander, Colonel Manatunga.  The colonel is also a disabled soldier.  He was partially paralyzed in 1994 when he was shot in the head.  Colonel Manatunga gave us a complete tour of the base while we discussed GAF’s tuk tuk project and the long-term livelihood project.  He is very supportive of our efforts in Sri Lanka.  He was so energized that he came to see the progress of the modified tuk tuk today. 

Meet our team -- Dilani

Meet Dilani (Di).  She has become our coordinator for all Global Abilities work in Sri Lanka.  In addition to volunteering her time as a travel agent, interpreter, logistics expert, and manager of our staff, Di is developing the training program to teach disabled persons here to make crafts that will be sold overseas.  She is also our main point of contact with our partner organizations in Sri Lanka.  I have been praised a bunch recently for starting our work in Sri Lanka, but Di has been the person most responsible for getting things done here.

Work on the Tuk Tuk Begins

When GAF envisioned the tuk tuk project, we planned to eventually make a vehicle that can be driven by a person in a wheelchair.  While this remains a long term goal, our current focus is to adapt the tuk tuk to accommodate disabled passengers.  Working with Lalith and his team, we designed the modifications so that the same vehicle can work for either a disabled passenger or a driver in a wheelchair.  Two days have passed since we began the work.  The vehicle was stripped to the frame before the real modifications were started.  See the pictures.

Meet our team -- Madu

Although Global Abilities is beginning our work in Sri Lanka by building wheelchair-accessible vehicles, our long term goal is to help disabled individuals here achieve economic independence and be able to support themselves and their families.  GAF will help develop the program, but the vast majority of the work will be done in Sri Lanka by Sri Lankans.  One of my main tasks this trip is to assemble a team of bright, dedicated people to be the core of our Sri Lanka staff.  The first member of this team is Madu, our driver.   Madu drove our team all over the island when we came here last summer, and although a bit directionally challenged at times, he is reliable, courteous, and incredibly accommodating.  In addition to driving me around, Madu’s other task is to make me fluent in Sinhalese.  He is only twenty years old and is very shy, so I am constantly asking him questions to get him to talk.  The only English Madu knows is, “ahhh,…right,” which he says often, probably hoping that I would just stop talking. 

Time for a haircut

Stayed home to take care of a bunch of admin work today.  I traveled half way around the world, but I still can’t escape paperwork!  Highlight of the day was when I wheeled on down to Sampath’s barber shop for a cut and shave.  This is a small community, and most of the residents stop by the barber shop or the little market that’s attached, so Sampath already knew about the work we were doing with the tuk tuk.  One of the pics is of Sampath’s son, daughter, and father-in-law.

tuk tuk work begins

Today we brought the tuk tuk to the mechanic who will do the modifications.  He is young, confident, and is looking forward to building a bunch of these. 

Bought our first tuk tuk

Today we bought a tuk tuk, a 3-wheeled scooter that will be a prototype for the first wheelchair accessible vehicles developed in Sri Lanka. Check out the pics on our Facebook page.

Great news for Global Abilities

The IRS notifed us that Global Abilities Foundation's application for nonprofit status is approved, retroactively.  We are officially a 501(c)3 organization.  Beginning last January (2011), all donations to GAF are federal tax deductible.

AJ is on his way to Sri Lanka to begin building the first wheelchair accessible vehicles there.  He will also lay the groundwork for the long term Livelihood Project, which will help disabled people gain economic independence.  Stay tuned for updates.