A question I often get is why Neurostronger does not focus purely on disability NGOs in California, specifically AbilityPath. After all, I live about 15 minutes from Ability Path's Redwood City location, so why bother spending my time fundraising for and working with communities halfway across the globe?
In California, people with disabilities are eligible to recieve up to 3,822 dollars of social welfare per month. California also dedicates 102.8 billion dollars yearly to covering disability healthcare costs. As a result, almost all of the daily residents at AbilityPath have a family that can pay for their healthcare needs. Most Abiility Path residents do not struggle to find a permanent home. Instead, they want ways to make their life more exciting and have a degree of independece. It is for this reason that I fundraised $5000 dollars to put on a Spring Picnic for them, which gives them a sense of normalcy and a day of fun playing Giant Jenga and Boci Ball.
It is true that much of the disabled community in California becomes homeless, especially if their family grows unwilling to care for their needs. However, if I were to put the $22,000 dollars I raised toward building shelters for the homeless in San Francisco, this would barely cover the cost of building one room for a disabled homeless person. Meanwhile, the 10,000 dollars I raised in Jamaica built a permanent shelter for 59 disabled children from Haiti while the 6500 dollars I raised put a roof over nearly blind girls in India. A life in India or Jamaica is worth the same as a life in California, and I can make the money I raised help more people by using for communities abroad.
Another reason I fundraise for communities abroad is because of the severity of the issues they face. I visited the Vijaya Mary School when I stayed with my Grandmother in Vijaywada, and I saw the algae ridden water leaking onto their faces while their caretakers struggled to put food on the table. The school was trying their best, but they simply were not getting enough funding from the government to provide comfort for these children. Students from the most poorly funded school in California would have been shocked to see the living conditions of the disabled children at the Vijaya Mary school for the blind. After leaving India, I promised both myself and the children that I would help them. I didn't know how at the time, but I knew that I could never sleep on my comfy mattress under a secure roof with good conscience unless I tried to help. Similarly, 59 disabled children in Jamaica have to be crammed into two rooms because they didn't have the funds to build a bigger shelter. I saw these injustices firsthand and realized that I had the capacity to make a difference through fundraising, so I raised money for these communities.
As Neurostronger grows, I envision our local impact growing as well. I have built a relationship with companies like Apple and Google, who have the capacity to fund larger projects that would make a difference in disabled Californians lives. This is only the beginning of Neurostronger, and I am excited to continue to see our partners abroad and at home flourish.
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