Hello everyone. My name is Nadia Abbas and I am a social worker by profession. In that capacity,I have had the pleasure of knowing Samir Maani for over a year now. I met Samir when he was in the hospital for a heart transplant, which unfortunately was rejected due to a rare genetic manifestation found out hours before the surgery. Naturally, he was heart broken. He had arrived to this country in hopes of new heart and a new life.
We now had to arrange to find hospice care for a 32-year-old Syrian refugee who was dying and did not have family or friends as support, in a new country, he was to call home. When he was at hospice care, Samir faced many difficulties. One, he was so young and secondly there was a cultural and language barrier. I remember the first time I visited him and how depressed and lonely he was. I took him out for a walk and he was so amazed to see a body of water. He had never seen a lake before. I started a sign up sheet to have people sign up to spend time with him. There was a lovely response and I was so excited to see all that people wanted to do for him. But understandably so, that sort of commitment requires patience and time and soon the list of people dwindled to a few. In the mean time, Samir is doing great. With the help of his sponsors, he was able to move to an assisted living facility, where he is much more comfortable. Although he has to give up most (if not all) of his aid, he is thankful he has a roof over his head and three meals a day. Due to his disability, Samir is not able to work or travel very far. He does not drive and the use of public transportation worries and scares him. This is still a work in progress.
A few months ago through a very generous donation, we were able to purchase a motorized wheelchair for him. Unfortunately. Samir was in an accident that damaged the wheelchair beyond repair. Thankfully he is fine, but needs a new wheelchair to be able to move around.
Please consider donating anything you wish to help raise enough money to buy him a new wheelchair.
We now had to arrange to find hospice care for a 32-year-old Syrian refugee who was dying and did not have family or friends as support, in a new country, he was to call home. When he was at hospice care, Samir faced many difficulties. One, he was so young and secondly there was a cultural and language barrier. I remember the first time I visited him and how depressed and lonely he was. I took him out for a walk and he was so amazed to see a body of water. He had never seen a lake before. I started a sign up sheet to have people sign up to spend time with him. There was a lovely response and I was so excited to see all that people wanted to do for him. But understandably so, that sort of commitment requires patience and time and soon the list of people dwindled to a few. In the mean time, Samir is doing great. With the help of his sponsors, he was able to move to an assisted living facility, where he is much more comfortable. Although he has to give up most (if not all) of his aid, he is thankful he has a roof over his head and three meals a day. Due to his disability, Samir is not able to work or travel very far. He does not drive and the use of public transportation worries and scares him. This is still a work in progress.
A few months ago through a very generous donation, we were able to purchase a motorized wheelchair for him. Unfortunately. Samir was in an accident that damaged the wheelchair beyond repair. Thankfully he is fine, but needs a new wheelchair to be able to move around.
Please consider donating anything you wish to help raise enough money to buy him a new wheelchair.