Higher Ground is a camp for disabled people such as Bradley. Bradley has Cerebral Palsy, Epilepsy, and is wheelchair bound; this year was his first year at camp. As we anxiously waited to head to the beach he told me that he hadn’t been to the beach since he was a baby. He actually couldn’t remember going. What struck me as odd is that he has lived in Durban his entire life.
The beach is RIGHT in his back yard.
You can hear the waves beating against the shore and you can smell the salty air almost anywhere in Durban. But he’d actually never been on the sand taking in the picturesque view.
March 16th changed all of that.
The tires sunk in the sand and created a lot of resistance. The easy route would have been to say it’s too much work. But Higher Ground said how can we make it happen?
James, another volunteer, wheeled Bradley across the sandy shore and parked him with the group. When everyone else was touching the water Bradley was not left out., James brought up
a bucket of water and had Bradley put his hand in it.
“Now you can say you touched the ocean.”
Bradley’s dream is to be able to walk so that he can go places like everyone else. Although he may never walk, he was able to go to the beach…
LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.
