Giving hope to Juan Camilo's life (e-wheelchair e-stairlift)

Hi, my name is Andres and I am fundraising for a friend called Juan Camilo (who lives in my home country Colombia). In 2019, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a terrible disease without a known treatment.

Juan Camilo and I went together to the university in 2012, and since then we have been good friends. However, time and distance got us apart. In December 2023, a group of friends from the University realised his health condition and the difficulties he was going through with his family. This includes a challenging economic situation which directly impacts his and his family's mental health.

Juan Camilo and his family (father, mother, and sister) live on the third floor of a building without a lift and stairs have a particular irregular non-geometric distribution. His father, in charge of the family, has limited economic resources. When Juan got MS, he was studying master's degree and starting his own company, so he wasn't really thinking of a pension scheme at the time.

Economically limited to moving to a ground floor house, his family and neighbours require high physical effort and even take severe safety risks to take him down to the street. As a reference, Juan Camilo is about 1.85 meters tall and weighs about 90 kg. So, this places a big barrier to taking him out of his house. Thus, he has waited up to 2 years on some occasions to only get out of the house (at least two strong people needed to take him down and upstairs).

So, I want to fundraise £5,000 to help Juan Camilo get an electric wheelchair (also called "Mobile Stairlift") to allow him to go up and down stairs with the help of only one person but without much physical effort. This will enable him to take part in medical appointments, and physiotherapies in specialised centres, and to simply go out of his house and see other things than just his house. I consider this extremely relevant because it will help him and his family's physical and mental health.

To get an idea of a Mobile Stairlift, it would be something like this one https://youtu.be/sATlJYb0gcI

To help the fundraising goals to be achieved, I am taking part in the Belfast Marathon (May 5th). This is an extremely big challenge for me considering the maximum I used to run in my entire life was 5 km until January 2024. I have been training and even with some old injuries re-appearing, I feel motivated to complete it. As part of the training scheme, I have completed the Thames Meander Half Marathon (March 3rd 2024).

Below I share a few pictures of Juan Camilo and his house for your reference.