For Patricia Sullivan, Nepal is much more than a faraway country she once visited. It is a place where she taught, worked alongside fellow physical therapists, helped establish rehabilitation services after a devastating earthquake — and formed friendships that have endured for more than a decade.
Now, at 80, the longtime physical therapist knows she isn’t likely to make the 20-hour journey back. But when her friends and colleagues in Nepal reached out again for help following devastating flooding, Sullivan found another way to respond.
She and fellow members of Marblehead Harbor Rotary are helping launch a Nepal Relief Fund to provide humanitarian assistance to communities in need.
Sullivan first visited Nepal decades ago. In 1990, she traveled around the world on a 10-month teaching trip that also gave her a chance to indulge another passion: hiking. In Nepal, she trekked through the mountains.
The journey was one of many international adventures she recounts in her book, “Boston Bangkok Bombay and Beyond: Journeys of a Physical Therapist.”
Her professional connection to Nepal deepened years later, while she was a visiting professor in Thailand. One of her graduate students was from Nepal and invited her to help with the physical therapy educational program there.
Sullivan began teaching and consulting at Kathmandu University in 2014, working closely with faculty members and physical therapists. She also developed a close relationship with members of the Dhulikhel Rotary Club.
Then, in April 2015, a catastrophic earthquake struck Nepal, killing thousands, injuring many more and destroying communities.
Sullivan returned that October.
Working with colleagues in Marblehead and Nepal, she helped write a Rotary Foundation Global Grant to establish rehabilitation clinics in rural areas, where thousands of people injured in the earthquake needed care.
She traveled back and forth to Nepal numerous times over the next several years, helping implement the program and provide advanced training for physical therapists working in rural communities.
The effort also strengthened ties between Marblehead Harbor Rotary — where Sullivan is a past president — and the Dhulikhel Rotary. After the 2015 earthquakes, three Marblehead Harbor Rotary members, led by Margo Steiner, also traveled to the Dhulikhel area on a Habitat for Humanity trip.
Those relationships have endured.
Now, following severe flooding in Nepal, Sullivan’s colleagues have again reached across the globe to Marblehead.
Marblehead Harbor Rotary has established the Nepal Relief Fund, with donations to be sent to the Dhulikhel Rotary. Local Rotarians there will oversee the logistics of providing temporary shelter, food, clothing, medical supplies and rehabilitation equipment to people affected by the disaster.
Sullivan said Nepal’s geography and limited infrastructure can make recovery from natural disasters particularly difficult.
“It’s a very poor country with almost no infrastructure,” she said. “Their roads are dirt roads so any kind of landslide will cause devastation. They desperately need help.”
Glacial collapse is believed to be a likely cause of the flooding and represents an ongoing threat to Nepal and other mountainous regions.
For Sullivan, the appeal is personal.
“It is such a warm and outgoing place,” she said. And the scenery is spectacular.”
HOW TO HELP: Donations to the Nepal Relief Fund can be made through the Marblehead Harbor Rotary website or by check payable to Nepal Relief Fund and mailed to National Grand Bank, 91 Pleasant St., Marblehead, MA 01945. For more information, email info.rcomh@gmail.com.
