Rolling Traveler

I’m back from the trip to Hanover, which I’ll post a bit about over the next few days. It’s not a major tourist destination, but it remains one of my favorite places to go, and one of the top five most wheelchair accessible cities I’ve visited. My friends there told me about an interesting walking tour of the city that I think would be of interest to history and architecture buffs, and I took some photos that I’d like to share with you all.

I haven’t forgotten about that final post about Wroclaw, detailing my (st)roll around the city: that’s coming up this week too. With the flu taking a lot out of me early in the week and traveling at the end of the week, there hasn’t been a good time to put it together with the right photos.

I got some news from John Hadden of the Darius Goes West crew. It seems that Darius’ powerchair crapped out on him while they were out on tour, and it took a few days before he could get another one. I remember myself what it was like when I had mechanical problems with my own manual chairs and wasn’t at home. Due to a factory defect, both tire tubes on my main wheels burst wide open once when I was in Warsaw, and I had to get someone to carry me to a taxi cab, so I could ride around and find a place that sold replacements. The screw on the axle of one of my casters came out when I was in London with my friend James, and I nearly lost the caster. In a McGuyver moment, we used a stick and some chewing gum to hold it together until I could get home. It’s a stressful situation to be so immobilized. Even if you can get to another chair quickly, it’s not your good chair, so it’s still going to slow you down.

Darius has his new powerchair now, and their tour is continuing with screenings around New York state this week and next.

I hope you all had a great weekend. All the best,

Derek.

There are many reasons why people have to use wheelchairs. Spinal cord injuries, head injuries, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy; the list goes on. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is one of the conditions on that list. A genetic condition that almost exclusively afflicts boys, Duchenne muscular dystrophy is the most common and most severe form. With an onset between infancy and the age of 6, it causes the muscles to waste away, weakening the child to the point where they need a wheelchair by the age of 12. It is usually fatal by the age of 20.

Darius Weems, the star of the multiple award-winning documentary Darius Goes West, has Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He is 19 years old, the same age his brother Mario was when he died of the same condition. With Darius Goes West, he has a chance to leave behind more than a brilliant and moving documentary. He has the chance to leave a great legacy.

Scientists know what causes Duchenne, and research into a cure is progressing. According to the scientists interviewed for Darius Goes West, the cure will come within our lifetime, but as with all research, money is the key. The 12-man crew responsible for Darius Goes West are trying to raise an amount of money that might put scientists well within reach of that goal.

The documentary, filmed four years ago when Darius was 15, was originally made by its young 12-man crew to document Darius’ first trip out of Athens, a road trip that would take him right across the US. There were two goals: to assess how wheelchair accessible the US really is, and to get Darius’ wheelchair ‘pimped’ on MTV’s Pimp My Ride. Now, in 2008, it has a new goal.

A copy of Darius Goes West costs $20. In the next 12 months, the money from every single copy that is sold will be split two ways: $17 will go to Duchenne muscular dystrophy research, and $3 will go to making new DVDs. Darius and the 11 other crew members have set themselves the task of selling one million copies in one year: that is a potential $17 million for research into this 100% fatal disease. If you buy the DVD, you not only get an amazing, moving documentary, you are contributing to a wonderful cause. There is no distributor; you can buy the DVD here.

This is the trailer for the documentary and the advertisement for the project, titled Darius Goes West: The Vehicle. It will be YouTube’s featured video later this month.

Darius Goes West is a more than just an award-winning documentary; it is a labor of love, and it is a great opportunity to do something that might make a difference to one section of the wheelchair-using population. Watch the trailer here, watch it on YouTube, share it with friends, and, if you can, think about supporting this great cause.

Further links:

Scenes from Darius’ graduation ceremony intercut with scenes from the movie. Call me soft, but I have cried every time I’ve watched this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf0h8UpK_Y0

Once again, the Darius Goes West web site:

http://www.dariusgoeswest.org/

and the Darius Goes West online store:

http://www.dariusgoesweststore.com/home.php