EquallyAble Foundation Raises Funds for over 100 Wheelchairs for the Disabled

Chicago IL: EquallyAble Foundation (EAF) launched its “1000 Wheelchairs in 10 Countries” campaign with a fundraising dinner on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at Monty’s Banquet Hall (703 S York Rd., Bensenville, IL 60106). The aim was to alleviate the day-to-day living of the physically challenged across the developing world. Each custom-fitted high terrain wheelchair costs $250 and every dollar spent is to be matched by a local partner in the recipient country to provide training or service. Uganda, Pakistan and Bangladesh are the first few countries to get these wheelchairs. EAF raised sufficient funds for well over 100 wheelchairs at this single event.

After Zakaria Zuhaidi’s Quranic prayer, MC Rasheed Ahmed, President of Indian Muslim Council-USA, presented facts and statistics from his research on the disability worldwide before focusing on its peculiarities in South Asia. There are 650M (i.e., 1 out of 10) disabled persons with a higher rate among females: 8 out of 10 of these live in developing countries. The primary cause is violence, with three children disabled for every one killed. Those over 70 years of age are especially vulnerable. Everyone is susceptible through accident, illness, aging, etc., and it incapacitates the entire family, including the breadwinner, because of the care required which averages 100 hours per week. The wheelchair becomes their ticket a meaningful by opening the prospect of education. Motivated by their faith, Muslims should be leading the way in addressing this need but this is not happening even in the mosques.

Sister Debbie de Palma, a convert to Islam, then shared her work with the disabled in schools, places of recreation and worship. The USA is especially privileged in having enacted binding legislation to protect the handicapped. Yet such disabilities remain largely invisible to the public eye, because the afflicted often prefer to stay at home.

Videos were shown of the dark side of Indian life, grinding poverty as evidenced by the disabled—90M in India alone—begging on the street, at railway stations, etc., and of the production and assembly of wheelchairs. Slides illustrated case studies of disabled persons helped by EAF to become independent, even financially self-supporting by opening a business.

EAF has entered into a partnership with Motivation (UK), an international charity in launching this campaign. With this global initiative, 100 wheelchairs will be provided in 10 different countries. EAF founder and Executive Director Mohammed Yousuf, who is himself physically challenged, brought home the plight of the physically challenged by simply recounting his own life story. He would never have succeeded without the help of numerous benefactors several of whom were present. He recounted how in his native India, the disabled are often discriminated against even by those closest to them as if they were atoning for some unspecified sin. The only one of three siblings to have survived polio, his family’s rejoicing was short lived when the realization eventually dawned that he would never walk again to suffer from lifelong prejudice. Denied education for a long time, he was finally taken in by a benevolent grandmother and sent to the nearest school in Hyderabad. Taking the bus to Osmania University proved a real challenge. Even two years after graduating as an engineer, he still could not find a job, for he would be declared unfit as soon as he appeared at an interview, e.g., all the way in Mumbai. A notice about handicapped parking he chanced upon eventually brought him to the USA, where he was finally socially accepted. His family, by that time, had already lost all hope. Here, Yousuf has been recently appointed to The Interagency Committee on Disability Research (ICDR) as the US Department of Transportation statutory member. In this capacity, he is on the executive committee of ICDR and Assistive Technology Forum. Through his EAF nonprofit, he has been working to create awareness about the needs of physically challenged population like easy accessibility, assistive technology, and helping the physically challenged worldwide by providing resources like wheelchairs and other equipment and software.

Keynote speaker Mujahid Ghazi eloquently led the fundraising drive. 240K Pakistani kids are at the risk of polio, and South Asia still reports such cases whereas the disease has been eradicated from the developed world. He underlined how the disabled often suffered discrimination from their own families and relatives. Many individuals and business owner responded spontaneously to his heart-stirring appeals and wrote out their checks on the spot.

After the fundraising was over Muslim comedians Aman Ali, Asif Ali, and Baba Ali targeted their jokes and skits particularly at the children but without neglecting the adults. Much of their humor actually revolved around the (mis-) communication between growing kids and their parents. Contrary to prevalent prejudices about the inability of Muslims to laugh at themselves, much of their cartooning was targeted at religious practices, such as the daily collective prayer, fasting during Ramadan, Eed sacrifice, the pilgrimage to Mecca, etc., as perceived not only by outsiders. Iranian convert to Islam Aman Ali, for example, switched rapidly back and forth between Muslim and Kafir perspectives eliciting laughter even from the pious-looking among the audience, all of whom had performed collective prayer on mats rolled out on the floor of the banquet hall before the meeting. Asif Ali recounted his boyhood falling out with his parents when he discovered that the delicious halal dish he had just enjoyed was his beloved pet goat decapitated and treacherously slaughtered by his father. Taking to heart his superstitious Indian mother’s admonishments to always fold up his prayer mat, Baba Ali hilariously ended up knocking his father out cold imagining him to be Satan. There is clearly a world of a difference between comradely caricaturing a group’s foibles even by sympathetic outsiders and using ‘humor’ as a hostile weapon with the sole intention of denigrating their faith and humanity.

The dinner was sponsored by Sabri Nihari, Taza 2 U, and Crescent Chicken.
Photo captions for EquallyAble Foundation fundraiser on April 27 (in order of priority):
1. [#7203] EAF Founder and Executive Director Mohammed Yousuf walking to the podium to address the guests.
2. [#7136] (L to R) MC Rasheed Ahmed, keynote speaker Mujahid Ghazi, Sister Debbie de Palma, and Asian Media USA Editor Sunthar Visuvalingam
3. [#7382] Standup Muslim comedians ((L to R) Asif Ali, Aman Ali, and Baba Ali with Asian Media USA photographer Syed Ansar Rizvi.
4. [#7286] Hall full of guests listening to keynote speaker Mujahid Ghazi’s impassioned pleas to donate generously.
5 [#7293] Keynote speaker Mujahid Ghazi (L) and MC Rasheed Ahmed (R) at the podium.