desispeaks

All of us have a personal connection to Nepal, one way or another. We're also very much aware that there is a lot of foreign interest in Nepal and the Himalayas, but there really isn't very much infrastructure there, and even less so for people with disabilities, so we feel like we can make a significant difference.

With regard to my firing, it was pretty murky and dragged on for the better part of the year. They claimed my work was suffering, I was able to provide documentation that it was not, and really they were just grasping at straws to sack a bunch of people - me included. As I mentioned, there were new owners looking to clean house. I was lucky enough to be able to get a lawyer involved and have them pay out long-term disability insurance and a decent severance. Some of my colleagues weren't so lucky.

Those are awesome questions! For the first question:

1. I would like to have been more honest about my sexual orientation to myself and my family.

2. I'd like to have done more travelling. I'm really physically unable to now.

3. I would have done some better financial planning.

Which leads me into your next question: "25-year-old Me, save at least 10% of every single paycheck, and put that savings away before you spend ANYTHING. Spend what you don't save, not the other way around, and for god's sake, start right now!" Then again, I tell my kids this and they don't really listen... so I'm not sure that 25yo me would listen either, haha

It's a fairly recent idea. When I wasn't disabled (for about 45 years of my life), I took a lot of things for granted, and honestly didn't give it much thought. Over the last 15 years, everything's sort of slowly falling apart so I'm much more aware of how limiting being differently abled can be - whether in terms of mobility or speech or anything really. Out of the 4 of us that are working on this project, 2 us developed our impediments later in life, and 2 of us were born with restricted mobility, so while we face similar difficulties, I think we approach them differently. We all got here through different roads.

With regard to my day-to-day life, I'd say that there are three things: One is that I have many unsolicited religious conversations, wherein the crux of it is that I'm just not praying hard enough (I'm an atheist) and I somehow 'deserve' to be in the situation I'm in. The second is that a lot of people unconciously connect physical disability with mental limitations and can be quite condescending. I'm just as smart - if not smarter - than a lot of people around me, but being in a wheelchair, and not being about to speak as clearly as I did 10 years ago makes people assume otherwise and treat me like a 'special little guy'. The third is that I'm not able to do things spontaneously and independently. Everything has to be planned in advance.

The building and the outdoor spaces are ready. There are 4 rentable rooms, which we are in the final stages of putting together. We're hoping for completion by the end of January. There are several small details that we need to address because the idea is the when someone with a disability wants to visit, they share the details of their disability with us (whether it is mobility, sensory, or cognitive) and we will tailor their experience to best address their specific needs. Accessibility isn't a one-size-fits-all deal.

Here's the GoFundMe, and here's the website, which is accessible.

The rooms and washrooms are constructed to international standards of accessibility - these options are really only available in 5-star resorts in Nepal currently, if at all. We will also have personalized airport pickup/drop and sight-seeing services, tailored to a person's specific needs. Because we are only catering to 4 rooms, we will be able to manage this personalization fairly easily I think. We're also partnering with sports and Himalayan trekking organizations to modify their offerings for wheelchair-users. Once again, this is not something that is broadly available except for when you're able to throw piles of money at it - we're hoping to make it affordable for average middle-class people because of the small-scale nature of our business.