Stafford Lions approached Stone Lions who have an excellent Disability Resources Scheme and by good fortune they had an available scooter.  Lion Chris can be seen in the picture with Dave taking delivery of his scooter.  He is now really enjoying being able to get out and about.
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The teenager plays in the second row for Stafford Rugby Club’s Under 13’s, who are now being sponsored by Stafford Lions.  The sponsorship money has been used to purchase new playing shirts with the Lions logo on the front.

A spokesman from the club said, “we are extremely grateful in the contribution that the Lions have given to our rugby club and look forward to building relations with them in the future.
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Michelle is justifiably proud of her daughter who has been battling ME since she was 12 years old.  In spite of much time lost due  to ME, at school and university,  Yasmin has fought to complete her A Levels before gaining a Masters Degree in  Developmental Genetics.   She is the only disabled student to gain an M.Sc. in this field at Nottingham University and they were very keen for her to go on to qualify for her Ph.D Research Degree.   Whilst Yasmin was studying for her Masters Degree she was able to access disabled student allowance (DSA) which enabled her to hire an electric mobility chair.  However there is no such help for Ph.D students  and appeals by Mum to the University and local charities had met with no success.

In desperation Mom emailed Stafford Lions Club to see if they could help.   The request came to Welfare Lead Lion Glenda Chard who together with Lion Dave visited the family.  They immediately realised that this was a very genuine case,  made extra urgent by the fact that Yasmin was due to go back to the university the following Sunday.  Owing  to the extreme fatigue and pain in her arms and hands Yasmin is unable to propel herself in a manual wheelchair and, to have any degree of independence, she needed an electric powered chair, one that would get her around the laboratory and fit under a work bench.

Stafford are not a cash rich club and would never be able to afford £1800 to purchase a chair or the over £100 a month to hire one.  However the Lions Club in neighbouring Stone have a fantastic mobility aids scheme where they have over 200 items of specialised mobility equipment available for long or short term loan.  Glenda wasted no time contacting Lion Mike Ward at Stone Lions who instantly said they might have an electric wheelchair that would be suitable for a student.  Mike gained an MBE for his work setting up the  mobility scheme which has now been serving the community for 25 years.

On the Friday Michelle, Yasmin, Glenda and Dave met Mike and to everyone’s delight the chair was ideal even better because it could fit in the boot of Mom’s car.   So on the Sunday Mom and daughter were able to drive off to Nottingham University happy in the knowledge that Yasmin would be able to manage her uni’ work.

Glenda has received an encouraging message from Mom Michelle to say that Yasmin is so pleased that she has her independence again and she whizzes around the university hospital. As part of her research Yasmin is very excited as she is going to be working in conjunction with a lab in Germany using Casper fish. They are apparently see through and she will be taking cells from her zebra  fish and placing them into these Caspers and will hopefully be able to see the blood vessels start growing.  It won’t happen quite like that of course , it  could take months to get the cells right and it has never been done before, hence the excitement.

Glenda said that Yasmin deserves a great deal of credit for overcoming so many obstacles in her life and who knows who might benefit from her research in the future.  It gave us a great feel-good factor to know that we could  help this delightful young lady to hopefully achieve her goals in life, a great example of Lions Clubs working together to make a real difference.

 Lions save
Yasmin’s Ph.D. place