A large workshop for the recycling machine, along with a warehouse for materials, are now completed at PAGIR - the People’s Action Group for Inclusion and Rights. A pioneer project which Lotus Flower Trust is so proud to have raised funds for, PAGIR is run by a community of people with various physical and mental special needs in Ladakh. Together they operate a recycling machine to create paper from rags and from this produce a variety of goods to sell at Leh Market to provide an income and sustain the centre. Thanks to generous donations from The Funding Network, which funded the workshop, and the Ladakh Hill Council, who donated the warehouse, the machine can now be operated in a building which is appropriate to the extreme altitude and weather conditions experienced here in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Iqbal and Stanzin, members of PAGIR
The project has gone from strength to strength in the three years since LFT first discovered founder member quadriplegic, Iqbal, working out of a small one-roomed office which had taken him 10 years to build (funded by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and a friend). In addition to the new workshop and warehouse, students from Winchester College are working hard to raise £60,000 (£25,000 raised so far) to build a hostel so that members and their visiting families can stay on site. Thank you to all who have helped support this wonderful project and the otherwise neglected special needs population of Ladakh. Our thanks go to the CBD Charitable Trust for funding the new Centre, The Funding Network for the Workshop and to the Ladakh Hill Council for the recycling machine and Warehouse. For more information on the PAGIR project please visit www.lotusflowertrust.org/pagir-special-needs-centre
Next we need to provide desperately needed washing and toilet facilities for the members of PAGIR - please get in touch if you can help: www.lotusflowertrust.org.
Photograph shows LFT Trustees visit to PAGIR in August 2018.