The Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center (SIRC) is a rehabilitation center for paraplegic patients of the population in need. Because of bad transportation routes (often causing severe car and bus accidents) as well as the topography of the country, there are an above-average number of paraplegics in Nepal.

However, there are practically no vacancies in rehabilitation centers which the mainly uninsured people could afford. For a population of 23 million people in Nepal there is only one department in a hospital in Pokhara, specialized in the treatment of lepers, procuring rehabilitation facilities for paraplegics, apart from the SIRC.

After the acute medical operations and treatments the paraplegic patients are usually simply left to their families. Quite a few of them ask their families to not nourish them anymore, thus choosing suicide, as – lacking a suitable therapy – they do not see a chance for a meaningful life and present to be a burden for their surroundings.

The SIRC was founded in 2002 on the initiative of Kanak Dixit. So far it was housed in very modest rooms. Thanks to the assistance of our association, however, a spacious peace of land near Kathmandu could be bought in 2006, on which during 2007 a rehabilitation center is built. Even though this will not meet western standards by far, it will make possible the necessary therapeutic measures with the goal to enable the patient to execute the basic daily chores by himself again.

The SIRC is professionally and financially assisted by the worldwide operating aid organization John Grooms which is specialized in this specific field.

>> Photogalerie SIRC (lot of land)

>> Link to Homepage of Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center

>> Brochure: Pictures of Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Center (pdf)