Foundation To Encourage Disabled Persons--any Info?

[haybilly]

I have been asked if I can provide any information regarding the above mentioned foundation--a family friend in UK is keen to find out a bit more than is available by surfing the 'net--does anyone out there in TV-Chiang Mai Land have any personal experience or otherwise with the Foundation to Encourage Disabled Persons?

I have already checked out all available info on Google [ so please don't bother to forward links] and am only interested to hear from anyone with first hand knowledge. Also, please don't think that I am investigating or searching to try to dig up dirt--I have not heard anything to suggest that the place in question is anything other than 100% 'kosher'.

Please feel free to P.M. me if you would prefer.

[harrry]

I have been asked if I can provide any information regarding the above mentioned foundation--a family friend in UK is keen to find out a bit more than is available by surfing the 'net--does anyone out there in TV-Chiang Mai Land have any personal experience or otherwise with the Foundation to Encourage Disabled Persons?

I have already checked out all available info on Google [ so please don't bother to forward links] and am only interested to hear from anyone with first hand knowledge. Also, please don't think that I am investigating or searching to try to dig up dirt--I have not heard anything to suggest that the place in question is anything other than 100% 'kosher'.

Please feel free to P.M. me if you would prefer.

I think that this foundation is one of the few that really has a lasting impact on people and seems to use what money it gets effectively. Unlike many NGOs it only lends its wheelchairs as it provides lifetime support for the recipients. I have personally seen many people with foundation chairs round chaingmai and this is only the tip of the iceberg as many of them are in surrounding country areas.l It also provides support for a very few cerebal palsy children who they care for to provide them at least a better standard of life than being restricted often in cages at home.

The staff all have disabilities and in my time in CM have become friends.

Don may have made a few enemies as his concern for the people is evident and he would not be slow in comming forward and criticising agencies who just send wheelchairs to people without seing them and have no follow up or replacememnt so that the chairs are soon unused. He also is critical of the charges that customs place on donated items even though there is supposed to be no duty on aids for people with disabilities.

I am a wheelchair user, I like the people and feel that they do an excellent job with limited resources. Yes more could be done but that needs money.

I am an Australian retired here and use an electric wheelchair. Recently I bought a car and needed a folding wheelchair with removeable wheels to use in a car. Recenty one in poor condition had been donated by a returning tourist. I asked if I could buy it at a reasonable price and Don decided that they do not usually sell anything and that the chair could have gone to a THai although for various reasons would have been of limited use. He compromised by allowing me to get the chair by paying for a wheelchair subscription which was several times more than the chairs worth but I ended up doing this as I felt the money would ve very very well used.

PM me if you need further information.

[haybilly]

I have been asked if I can provide any information regarding the above mentioned foundation--a family friend in UK is keen to find out a bit more than is available by surfing the 'net--does anyone out there in TV-Chiang Mai Land have any personal experience or otherwise with the Foundation to Encourage Disabled Persons?

I have already checked out all available info on Google [ so please don't bother to forward links] and am only interested to hear from anyone with first hand knowledge. Also, please don't think that I am investigating or searching to try to dig up dirt--I have not heard anything to suggest that the place in question is anything other than 100% 'kosher'.

Please feel free to P.M. me if you would prefer.

I think that this foundation is one of the few that really has a lasting impact on people and seems to use what money it gets effectively. Unlike many NGOs it only lends its wheelchairs as it provides lifetime support for the recipients. I have personally seen many people with foundation chairs round chaingmai and this is only the tip of the iceberg as many of them are in surrounding country areas.l It also provides support for a very few cerebal palsy children who they care for to provide them at least a better standard of life than being restricted often in cages at home.

The staff all have disabilities and in my time in CM have become friends.

Don may have made a few enemies as his concern for the people is evident and he would not be slow in comming forward and criticising agencies who just send wheelchairs to people without seing them and have no follow up or replacememnt so that the chairs are soon unused. He also is critical of the charges that customs place on donated items even though there is supposed to be no duty on aids for people with disabilities.

I am a wheelchair user, I like the people and feel that they do an excellent job with limited resources. Yes more could be done but that needs money.

I am an Australian retired here and use an electric wheelchair. Recently I bought a car and needed a folding wheelchair with removeable wheels to use in a car. Recenty one in poor condition had been donated by a returning tourist. I asked if I could buy it at a reasonable price and Don decided that they do not usually sell anything and that the chair could have gone to a THai although for various reasons would have been of limited use. He compromised by allowing me to get the chair by paying for a wheelchair subscription which was several times more than the chairs worth but I ended up doing this as I felt the money would ve very very well used.

PM me if you need further information.

Many thanks, Harrry, for your prompt and helpful response--I shall send a link to my UK friends and if they would like any further information then, as you suggest, I shall P.M. you for more help--as I say, the reason for the inquiry is that their daughter may be coming over to help out at the Foundation and they just wanted a bit more insight than was available on the 'net.

Thanks again.

[jaideeguy]

Having known Don for almost a decade here in CM, I can honestly say that he and his organization is one of the best NGO's I've run across in Asia. One of the few that actually does things and is mostly self sufficient.....employing handicapped people to help the handicapped, very creative with wheelchair design, and other enterprises that his foundation is engaged in.

My father had to make a charitable donation for tax purposes and asked my advise on who to give it to and without any hesitation, I highly recomended Don's foundation.