World Rehabilitation Fund

World Rehabilitation Fund engages in short term projects to improve the lives of people with disabilities. 1. WRF provides fiscal sponsorship to the Pakistan Society for Rehabilitation for the Disabled, the largest program for persons with disabilities in Lahore, Pakistan. 2. WRF provided rehabilitation medicine equipment and materials to three hospitals in Tacloban, Philippines to assist with rebuilding of the Rehabilitation Units at the hospitals affected by the devastating Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. 3. WRF is supporting a music education program at the Ecole St. Vincent, School for Children with Disabilities in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.

WRF is involved in a project to assist Ecole St. Vincent, a school for children with disabilities founded by the Episcopal Church. The Music for Haiti project was developed by Dr. Josie Stein, a scientist and an amateur violist, who, as a teenager, volunteered to help the children at the Ecole St. Vincent school.

The project collects instruments, music, and other materials to help the children’s music education. The school educates some 450 children with physical disabilities including those with mobility, visual and hearing impairments. 80% of Haitian schools, including, Ecole St. Vincent, were destroyed or badly damaged by the quake. So far some 30 instruments have been delivered to the school. Luthiers Sans Frontieres of Belgium also has helped to bring many of the instruments from Europe to Haiti and will be providing assistance in the maintenance of instruments used in the program.

The project also has raised funds to help pay for the music teachers at the school and for the purchase of a keyboard. For this project, WRF also is partnering with Haiti-New Jersey Partners of the Americas. The music program has long been considered one of the prize programs of the school and has high participation by the school’s students.