Walkabout Foundation

Siblings Luis and Carolina Gonzalez-Bunster established Walkabout Foundation in August 2009 after a visit to their local YMCA in Connecticut led them to discover that Luis could not enter the building because it lacked a ramp and elevator. Luis suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident when he was 18 years old, which left him paralyzed from the chest down. Together, the siblings took action in their community and started Walkabout Foundation to promote awareness of paralysis and disabilities. Luis and Carolina launched the foundation with an 870 kilometer walk along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and Luis became the first person in the history of Spain to cross the entire country using only the strength of his two arms.

Walkabout Foundation is a non-profit organization that focuses on funding research to find a cure for paralysis and donating wheelchairs to people in need around the world.

Funding Research To Find A Cure

Today, there is reason for hope as scientists are closer than ever to finding a cure for paralysis. Doctors around the world are working hard to regenerate the damaged nerves in the spinal cord using a variety of different techniques, including stem cells.

Walkabout Foundation works closely with research centers all over the globe, including the Christopher Reeve Foundation and The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, to fund individual research grants. Walkabout receives hundreds of research grant applications each year and chooses to fund those grants it believes are most promising. As a condition of receiving a grant, Walkabout Foundation requires the grant awardee to provide an initial report on the use of funds and a mid-way report of progress.

Donating Wheelchairs To People In Need

While the cure is being found, Walkabout Foundation seeks to provide humanitarian assistance to people with disabilities on the ground today by donating wheelchairs to people who can otherwise not afford one.

Walkabout Foundation donates the “Rough Rider” wheelchair which is exclusively designed for the rough and rugged terrain of the developing world and:

• is made of bicycle tubing and therefore locally repairable

• allows for custom fit

• is light, foldable, and durable

• has all-terrain wheels

• only costs $300 USD