Wheel-chairs for Sri Lanka; WC4SL

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Wheel-chairs for Sri Lanka ( WC4SL ).
This is a Charitable Community Effort to ship
to Sri lanka, wheel chairs etc., for the disabled.
ලංකාවට - රෝද පුටු உருள் நாற்காலி

Wheelchair

රෝද පුටුව Wheel chair உருள் நாற்காலி

wc4sl@yahoo.ca (e-mail addresses of project)
place.names@yahoo.com (alternative e-mail)

Last update of this document: 27-April-2012, by Chandre DW. Please send errors, omissions to wc4sl@yahoo.ca.

See Donations List: 27-April-2012
Regarding Donations (It is often better to Donate to a charity in the name of a person to whom you are planning to send a difficult-to-choose gift). Send your contribution by E-mail.

Ms. Anzul Jahn is taking a number of wheel chairs and crutches to be given to a needy institution in Sri Lanka on her return trip in June 2012, after her stint in Ottawa.
Approximately two dozen wheel chairs (includes a few walkers) were shipped out of Ottawa on 12th-Nov-2010 and finally to Colombo, repaired and distributed on 12th-June 2011 in Sri Lanka.

The move from Ottawa (Nov 12-2011) was done with Nandana Gajanayaka, Nandana Ranasinghe, Sajith Jayasooriya, Asoka Vidyaratna, Viresh Wickremasinghe , and Anajali Dharmawardana helping to move out the wheel chairs from Fulton, Ottawa Road garage to Sarath Amarakoon's warehouse in Kanata, for eventual shipping to Toronto and Colombo via Ceycan. This was mostly the consignment from Perth and Tisarana. They were shipped to Colombo in January, and collected by Mr. Channa Bopage, for OSDASA (Organization for Skills Development and Social Assistance), an organization where Nandana Gajanayaka has been personally involved from the founding stage. WC4SL donations covered the expenses in moving, shipping, customs, and also contributed $140.00 to the expenses of OSDASA which also spent its own funds. See Donations.

Click to enlarge Wheel chairs donation at Pitigala

Click to enlarge OSDASA-wheelchair and Blood-donor event, 12-June-'11

The wheelchairs were moved to a free storage location at Sri Visuddharama temple in Indipalegoda, Pitigala. Many of the wheel chairs needed repairs and refurbishing cushions etc. This was done by OSDASA who also identified suitable recipients of wheel chairs and held a wheel-chairs donation and blood-donor clinic in the Pitigala area, using the Temple resources as the venue. Nanadana Gajanayaka attended the session in Sri Lanka and spoke explaining the role of the Ottawa donors through WC4SL and OSDASA. The additional district secretary (Additional GA) of Galle - Mr. Bandula Harischandra, Assistant District Secretary (AGA) for Niyagama and Maetiviliye Pannyakiththi Thero particiipated as invited guests. Many in Ottawa know Ven. Maetiviliye P from his Vassaana sojourn at the Hilda Jayawardena Temple in 2010. Some 57 people donated blood. A newspaper report appeared in the Lankadeepa.

Current shipment Nov-Dec. 2010 - short fall of funds for this shipment noted, and covered by Chandre Dharmawardana.
Consignee: Organisation for Skills Development and Social Assistance Channa Bopage's office fax #: (0094) 11-2388877. will look after the consignment in Colombo. Shipping to Colombo via Ottawa to Kanata and Toronto.$125+$250+$800.

Wheel chairs from Perth, plus additional chairs obtained with the help of Rajitha-Kumari were shipped to Sri lanka with the help of Sarath Amaarakoon of Mahaweli trading Inc.

Viresh Wickremasinghe, Nandana Gajanayake, Sarath Amarakoon, Anajali Dharmawardana and Nandana Ranasinghe volunteered in this effort: 12-Nov-2010

WE HELPED: Click to enlarge water station at 57 Birch, Ottawa, for the half-marathon Sept. 2010, wheel-chairs and runners"

17 wheelchairs had been collected from Perth and stored at the Tisarana Monastery. They were moved in April to Subadra kappagoda's basement. (this cost $183.38) and then to a garage in Fulton rd in July 2010, The Van Rental+Gas and other expenses for moving to Fulton rd cost $89.97
Nanadana Gajanayaka, Dave Harrison, Andoma de Silva, Sebastian Duff, Chandre DW, Samantha Dharmawardana, Subadhra Kappagoda, Asoka Vidyaratne, Nandana Ranasinghe, and Ranjini Alwis helped in this round.

Click to enlarge bringing from Tisaranee-1

Click to enlarge bringing from Tisaranee-1

Click to enlarge "in the middle of moving from Subadra's place:"

Wheel chairs distribution in Sri lanka now under the Red Lotus. foundation:

Click to enlarge Red Lotus presentation 1

Click to enlarge Red Lotus 2

Mr. Sarath Peiris took a consignment of wheelchairs to Sri Lanka December 2009.
wc4sl handed the chairs to the Acting HC, Ms. Anzul Jahn.

Nanadana Gajanayake, Chandre Dharmawardana, Chandima Amarakoon, Anzul Jahn, Sarath Peiris, Neranjala Gajanayake, Chaminda Perera, helped in this effort

They have now been received in Colombo by the DVJ health unit.See photos:
Local transport and payments (truckman Uri etc) in Ottawa, $50

Click to enlarge Colombo depot
Unloaded in Colombo
3 Feb 2010
Thanks to Sarath Peries.

Click to enlarge - Click to enlarge.

Details of equipment shipped with Mr. Sarath Peiris

These items were shipped in Sept.2009 and now distributed in SL via the red-lotus health unit See the list of shipped wheel chairs etc. We also donated $300.00 to Red Lotus.
We thank HE. Mr. Daya Perera for helping to ship them to Colombo with his baggage.

Click for Larger image
- Click to enlarge. - Click to enlarge. - Click to enlarge. - Click to enlarge. - Click to enlarge.

Thanks to Mary McDowell and her team at STRIDE in Ottawa

These wheelchairs are destined for distribution via hospitals and other institutions dealing with disabled individuals.
see:
  Stride, Ottawa, Canada
  Wheelchair site
   Wheelchairs Tour
   Dharmavijaya Foundation healthcare projects contacts: Olcott Gunasekera, Hema Goonatilleke
   Director of Services,( Ranviru etc), Sri Lanka, Bgr. Dr. Sanjeeva Munasinghe: mobile number is 0773082587
   For obtaining customs waiver etc., Mr. Jayamanna, Director of Social services , dirss@sltnet.lk

Shippers Kumar; Ceycan Transcontinental Shipping Inc. 1981 Boylen Road, Unit # 9 Mississauga, Ontario L5S 1R9
Tel.: 905 673 9873 Fax: 905 673 9905 Email: ceycantrans@gmail.com
Trico agent USA ( Don Gunawardana) via Sarath A.
For details about shipping containers, see:
Shiiping containers
Smaller sized containers
Trico
crating the wheel chairs before shipping - cardboard boxes?

According to Nimal Fernando
nimal.fernando@sympatico.ca
the price for a 40x8x8 container would be $1900. This quote, valid till the fall of 2009, included pickup in Ottawa, crating and transfer to Montreal.
The 40x8x8 will be able to hndle about 70 wheel chairs.

24-May, 18-april and 21-march-2009 collections
Thanks to Mary McDowell and her team of Volunteers at STRIDE CANADA

We have now shipped:
6 walkers + 2 walkers
9 wheel chairs + 8 wheel chairs
See detailed specifications of equipment
See details of equipment from 18-Apr-09
7 pairs of crutches, 4 walking sticks, one prosthetic leg
Three bath chairs
See details of equipment from 23-May-09

WE have SHIPPED THEM IN DEC 2009 ~~not yet shipped ( as of Nov. 2009)~~
See details of equipment from 18-Oct-09

Current Participants(i.e., giving their time, tranasport fund-raising or storage help)
Chandre Dharmawardana, Anoma de Silva, Rohan Basnayaka, Nandana Gajanayaka, PrabathJ,S-N Kappagoda
Sahan Seneviratne (sseneviratne@concert.ca), and Sarath Amarakoon (sarath71@hotmail.com),
and Saman Amarakoon have joined us and helped immensely in moving and storing chairs.
Nimal Fernando (Montreal, reg. shipping etc.)
Ranjini Alwis
17-March-2009 ; A second visit was made on 9-March-2009 with Anoma de Silva, Rohan Basnayake, Chandre Dharmawardana and mary McDowell. The latter showed three models and gave a short course on inspection, cleaning and maintainance of wheel chairs, with user saftey aspects emphasized. A prosthetic leg was given us. An e-mail was sent to every one concerned.

A letter was received from Prof. Epasinghe, regarding containers, and possible arrangements for receipt of material in Colombo on 17-March.2009.
The smallest size container is 8'x8'x8', i.e., it could carry 34 wheel chairs with each wheel chair estimated to be at 15 cubic feet.

6-Jan-2009 A preliminary visit was made to the repair shops and warehouses of Stride Canada on 5th January 2005. Dr. Chandre Dharmawardana (convener), Mr. Cahm Wijeratne (SL-Foreign Ministry, Deputy HC), Mr. Sarath Peiris (SP- SL Police and Defense Attaché) and Mary McDowell (Stride Canada) were present. Mr. Nanadana Gajanayake (SL-Canada Association) has been a keen supporter but was not able to attend this first meeting. He hopes to be involved in the next meeting.

We concluded that we should first concentrate on "manual" wheel-chairs which are easiest to repair and maintain. The computer-controlled machines are expensive, difficult to repair, and also occupy a large shipping volume. The immediate objective is to begin to collect wheel chairs for about a month and see if we can come up with enough for shipment. Even a manual wheel chair would occupy a volume of about 16-18 cu.ft when crated.

One way of rasing funds for the shipment and other expenses is to request individuals to "sponsor" the cost of shipping a a wheel chair. Thus an apt way for "birth-day celebrations", "funeral commemorations" etc., may be to donate funds to ship a wheel chair. We need to identify individuals who would like to join this project and help to spread the idea.

We have contacted a number of people and we have had very helpful inputs from
Anoma de Silva
Ranjini Alwis
Rohan Basnayake

We now have a core group of people for our initial committee, and that may be all we need for the present, since we have the support of Nandana, and also Cahm and Sarath from the High Commission.

Action's needed:
Contact shipping to get an estimate of the costs for a possible spring shipment. Rohan has contacted Trico and the picture is very optimistic.
Rohan Basnayake will check out the forms needed for registration of the project, to formalize it, so that we can deal with organizations like STRIDE.
Chandre will request STRIDE to collect surplus wheelchairs and help out in that, and look into needed conditioning of chairs etc.
The expenses etc for the initial shipment will be handled by a small number of contributors, and this first step will enable us to iron out all the problems and set up the program.
After that, we should examine the possibility of each Temple or similar motivated groups to sponsor shipments of chairs.
Meet again in about when necessary.

We are attempting to form a small group volunteers for collecting used or surplused wheel chairs, available through various organizations in Canada. Suitable wheel chairs will be selected and shipped to Sri Lanka.
It is needed to:
assure the collection, conditioning, cataloging and warehousing the wheel chairs and related material (e.g.,crutches).
Once a sufficient number is collected, they needed to be crated and shipped to Sri lanka
Establish liaison and links with organizations in Colombo hospitals/volunteer groups in Colombo. This is already "being explored".
Raise funds for shipping and other expenses by getting individuals to "sponsor a wheel chair".
This is a non-profit volunteer-driven organization which also helps other volunteer organizations like Stride Canada in dealing with their surpluses.

Last update: 7-May-2009, 21-March; 17-March-2009, 25-May-2009 updates: 7-Jan-2009, 9-March-2009 First write up: 5-Jan-2009

wc4sl@yahoo.ca (e-mail address of project)
mail directly to project coordinator:
chandre.dharma-wardana@nrc.ca

The move from Ottawa (Nov 12-2011) was done with Nandana Gajanayaka, Nandana Ranasinghe, Sajith Jayasooriya, Asoka Vidyaratna, Viresh Wickremasinghe , and Anajali Dharmawardana helping to move out the wheel chairs from Fulton, Ottawa Road garage to Sarath Amarakoon's warehouse in Kanata, for eventual shipping to Toronto and Colombo via Ceycan. This was mostly the consignment from Perth and Tisarana.	They were shipped to Colombo in January, and collected by Mr. Channa Bopage, for OSDASA (Organization for Skills Development and Social Assistance), an organization where Nandana Gajanayaka has been personally involved from the founding stage. WC4SL donations covered the expenses in moving, shipping, customs, and also contributed $140.00 to the expenses of OSDASA which also spent its own funds. See Donations.
Click to enlarge Wheel chairs donation at Pitigala	Click to enlarge OSDASA-wheelchair and Blood-donor event, 12-June-'11
The wheelchairs were moved to a free storage location at Sri Visuddharama temple in Indipalegoda, Pitigala. Many of the wheel chairs needed repairs and refurbishing cushions etc. This was done by OSDASA who also identified suitable recipients of wheel chairs and held a wheel-chairs donation and blood-donor clinic in the Pitigala area, using the Temple resources as the venue. Nanadana Gajanayaka attended the session in Sri Lanka and spoke explaining the role of the Ottawa donors through WC4SL and OSDASA.	The additional district secretary (Additional GA) of Galle - Mr. Bandula Harischandra, Assistant District Secretary (AGA) for Niyagama and Maetiviliye Pannyakiththi Thero particiipated as invited guests. Many in Ottawa know Ven. Maetiviliye P from his Vassaana sojourn at the Hilda Jayawardena Temple in 2010. Some 57 people donated blood. A newspaper report appeared in the Lankadeepa.

Wheel-chairs for Sri Lanka ( WC4SL ). This is a Charitable Community Effort to ship to Sri lanka, wheel chairs etc., for the disabled. ලංකාවට - රෝද පුටු உருள் நாற்காலி

Last update of this document: 27-April-2012, by Chandre DW. Please send errors, omissions to wc4sl@yahoo.ca.

See Donations List: 27-April-2012 Regarding Donations (It is often better to Donate to a charity in the name of a person to whom you are planning to send a difficult-to-choose gift). Send your contribution by E-mail.

Regarding Donations (It is often better to Donate to a charity in the name of a person to whom you are planning to send a difficult-to-choose gift). Send your contribution by E-mail.

Wheel chairs from Perth, plus additional chairs obtained with the help of Rajitha-Kumari were shipped to Sri lanka with the help of Sarath Amaarakoon of Mahaweli trading Inc.

Viresh Wickremasinghe, Nandana Gajanayake, Sarath Amarakoon, Anajali Dharmawardana and Nandana Ranasinghe volunteered in this effort: 12-Nov-2010

Nanadana Gajanayaka, Dave Harrison, Andoma de Silva, Sebastian Duff, Chandre DW, Samantha Dharmawardana, Subadhra Kappagoda, Asoka Vidyaratne, Nandana Ranasinghe, and Ranjini Alwis helped in this round.

Nanadana Gajanayake, Chandre Dharmawardana, Chandima Amarakoon, Anzul Jahn, Sarath Peiris, Neranjala Gajanayake, Chaminda Perera, helped in this effort

Thanks to Mary McDowell and her team at STRIDE in Ottawa

Wheel-chairs for Sri Lanka ( WC4SL ).
This is a Charitable Community Effort to ship
to Sri lanka, wheel chairs etc., for the disabled.
ලංකාවට - රෝද පුටු உருள் நாற்காலி

See Donations List: 27-April-2012
Regarding Donations (It is often better to Donate to a charity in the name of a person to whom you are planning to send a difficult-to-choose gift). Send your contribution by E-mail.