On June 2, 2024, we got an inquiry from a student studying at Kyoto University asking whether we could offer a wheelchair for her disabled brother in Solomon Islands(A constitutional monarchy located in Melanesia in the South Pacific. A member of the British Commonwealth and a Commonwealth realm. The capital is Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal).
Our response was “basically, we can provide you with a wheelchair, but would you be willing to transport it yourself from Japan to the Solomon Islands?” From there, we asked her, Ms. S, to send us some measurements of her brother, such as his waist width, and at each meeting we began looking for a wheelchair that we thought would fit him.
We found two candidates for wheelchairs, so on August 23, we asked Ms. S. to come from Kyoto to our warehouse in Haijima, and she agreed that the first wheelchair would be “perfect” for her brother. However, when we pointed out that “he is still growing up,” she said, “that’s true; the first wheelchair might get too tight soon,” and we settled on the second one, which seemed to have a little more room in terms of size.
We handed the wheelchair to Ms. S., who will take it back to Solomon on the plane on September 4. She said, “this will reduce my mother’s burden drastically. Thank you to everyone in the NGO.” She seemed very happy. We hope that the wheelchair will be delivered to her brother as soon as possible.
August 31, 2024 Hirokazu Morita
She said that this was a temporary return to Solomon and that she would give her brother a wheelchair and return to Kyoto for her studies after a while.
It might be hard for her to bring back a big wheelchair to the Solomon Islands. We wish her a safe trip home.
(Click on the photo to enlarge)