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Project name

Wheel Chair Program at Kham / Tibet

Champion (club member)

Dieter Wegener, Katja Wegener (Project Manager)

Recipient of funds

Kham Aid Foundation

City, country

Pasadena/CA, USA

Total amount

1.500,- Euro

Of which in 2009/2010

1.500,- Euro

Kham Aid Foundation´s wheelchair program delivers free wheelchairs and therapeutic services in a remote area of western China, Kham, to disabled people who live beyond the reach of their own country´s health care system.  Kham Aid Foundation buys the wheelchairs from a Chinese manufacturer. The program is entirely funded by private donations, 100 US Dollar per chair. Since 2001 Eunice Shen is the director of the program. She is a pediatric physical therapist in California. She and her volunteer team of therapists and doctors visit the region and distribute the chairs. Mrs. Shen and her volunteers pay for their own airfare to China.

The wheelchairs go to residents of rural areas just outside the borders of Tibetian Autonomous region. These counties are heavily populated with ethnic Tibetans, many of whom live in deep poverty. Disabled people living in such circumstances cannot get wheelchairs not only because they are too expensive, they are just plain unobtainable. The kind of disabilties which afflict the people are for example cerebral palsy, arthritis, accidental injuries or polio. The disabled have no choice but to spend their lives immobilized in bed or chair. Being able to sit in a wheelchair and be rolled around inside one´s home or to a neighbour´s house is liberating.

We first heard about the Foundation because of a newspaper article in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in 2007 (see appendix). In August 2008 we met Mrs Shen during our stay in the States which gave us the opportunity to interview her. Mrs. Shen can oversee the distribution of more than 580 chairs up to now.

Kham Aid Foundation (www.khamaid.org) is a California non profit organization founded in 1997 and based in Pasedena. In addition to the wheelchair program, this foundation also offers assistance to Tibetans in the area of education, economic development and cultural heritage preservation.

Our project proposal is that Rotary Club Munich International sponsors 20 wheelchairs, each 100,- US-Dollar = 2.000,- US-Dollar = approx. 1.500,- Euro (1,42 US-Dollar = 1 Euro) in the Rotarian year 2009/10.

Henrik Bork, the journalist of Süddeutsche Zeitung in Beijing, has already offered to share his experiences with Kham Aid Foundation at his next stay in Munich during a RCMI clubmeeting.