Reason to live: SDSS is my lifeline

A 35-year-old young man with spinal cord injury (SCI) who has been serving in a Bikash's Wheelchair Workshop (BWW) has an amazing life-testimony in connection with Sundar Dhoka Saathi Sewa (SDSS). Kedar Khadka, a wheelchair user since the age of 14 years old, fell from a tree while collecting tree fodders for his livestock at his village Rautahat.

Kedar shared his bond with SDSS as a life-saving organization. After becoming a person with SCI, he lost all the hopes of his life, later on he encountered SDSS through Sundar Dhoka Church (SDC). His life changing journey with SDSS started as a handicraft therapist, where he got a job to work in a handcraft department as well as got support of accommodation within the organization. The accessible infrastructure and motivating personalities of the organization had fueled him to live his life in a wheelchair. Initially he learned to make stuff in handicraft and started living within the organization premises. However, a few years later he chose to live on his own as a part of social inclusion and independent living.

Based on his passion to support persons with disability (PwD) and hard work, he was sent to Mobility India (India) for one month training of wheelchair repairing and maintenance by SDSS. At present, Kedar is a main technician of the BWW and annually he repairs hundreds of wheelchairs, not only that he travels a few regional parts of Nepal as a technician during the wheelchair distribution program.

According to him, if he was not encountered with SDSS his life would be limited in a room of his village house, he added perhaps he would not survive yet as he is very prone to bedsores due no sensation on his lower body parts. His one sentence for the organization is "SDSS has given me a reason to live my life with respect and dignity and saved my life too''. Now Kedar lives happily with his wife and a son.