Help Ashla Travel to San Francisco!
Donation protected
We are crowdfunding for Ashla Rani, our friend, and a devoted palliative caregiver and disability rights advocate from Kerala, India. As a young software engineer, Ashla became quadraplegic after falling from a train. Through her strength, resilience, and wish to serve others, Ashla now works as Executive Assistant to Dr. M.R. Rajagopal, the father of Indian palliative care. She has become a growing voice for disability rights in India, writing for the Times of India and being honored with the Youth Icon Award of 2017. Ashla is also a trained counselor who supports and inspires patients and families at Pallium India's halfway home for people living with paralysis.
It is Ashla's dream and ours that she travel to the San Francisco Bay Area, USA in March 2018 alongside Dr. M.R. Rajagopal.
This journey would allow Ashla to speak on stage with two global luminaries of palliative care, Dr. Rajagopal and Dr. BJ Miller, who himself was seriously injured in a train accident as a young person, and who now provides palliative and hospice care.
Visiting the Bay Area would also allow Ashla to engage with founding organizations of the disability rights movement in the United States. Having this dialogue holds promise for Ashla's future work and advocacy in India.
We are fundraising to support safe international travel, medical insurance, and mobility for Ashla and her mother, who helps with her care.
Your generous contribution will help to make Ashla's dream a reality, allowing for a groundbreaking exchange of insights, and formation of new relationships and avenues for disability activism.
Lastly, it is Ashla's wish that if we either exceed or we do not reach our fundraising goal, remaining donations will go to Pallium India's halfway home, which provides rehabilitative care and vocational training for patients with spinal cord injuries and their families.
Thank you so much for your support!
Sincerely,
Sarah Schear (UCSF Medical Student, friend and colleague of Ashla's)
Hetal Sheth (Indians for Collective Action, friend of Ashla's)
It is Ashla's dream and ours that she travel to the San Francisco Bay Area, USA in March 2018 alongside Dr. M.R. Rajagopal.
This journey would allow Ashla to speak on stage with two global luminaries of palliative care, Dr. Rajagopal and Dr. BJ Miller, who himself was seriously injured in a train accident as a young person, and who now provides palliative and hospice care.
Visiting the Bay Area would also allow Ashla to engage with founding organizations of the disability rights movement in the United States. Having this dialogue holds promise for Ashla's future work and advocacy in India.
We are fundraising to support safe international travel, medical insurance, and mobility for Ashla and her mother, who helps with her care.
Your generous contribution will help to make Ashla's dream a reality, allowing for a groundbreaking exchange of insights, and formation of new relationships and avenues for disability activism.
Lastly, it is Ashla's wish that if we either exceed or we do not reach our fundraising goal, remaining donations will go to Pallium India's halfway home, which provides rehabilitative care and vocational training for patients with spinal cord injuries and their families.
Thank you so much for your support!
Sincerely,
Sarah Schear (UCSF Medical Student, friend and colleague of Ashla's)
Hetal Sheth (Indians for Collective Action, friend of Ashla's)
Organizer
Sarah Schear
Organizer
San Francisco, CA
