Provincial MLA Naomi Yamamoto and BC Minister of Children and Family Development Stephanie Cadieux were at ICORD on July 14th to announce some exciting news: a $350,000 investment by the Province to support ICORD’s Physical Activity Research Centre (PARC), a community-based, integrated fitness and research facility. PARC is specifically designed and operated for people with SCI and equipped with fully-accessible, state-of-the-art exercise equipment.
“As someone who lives with a spinal cord injury, I appreciate the work that the researchers at ICORD do to support British Columbians living with this type of injury,” said Minister Cadieux on behalf of Health Minister Terry Lake. “This new funding will build on existing work, improve accessibility and support continued research into new rehabilitation strategies.”
“With this funding, we can now make the gym more accessible by extending our hours into the evening and weekends, and opening up the research to people with non-traumatic spinal cord injuries and other illnesses or diseases affecting the spinal cord. The funding will also allow us to build on research results to create and evaluate strategies to enhance participation in exercise and physical activity in the SCI community,” said ICORD researcher Dr. Tania Lam.
ICORD is very grateful for this funding and sincerely thanks the BC Government and the Ministry of Health for this support.
PARC Supervisors Megan, Sebastian and Ali celebrate the funding announcement.
Dr. Tania Lam speaks about the positive impact that this provincial funding will have on the spinal cord injury community as well as on SCI research.
Picture above from left to right: PARC participant John Chernesky, Minister Stephanie Cadieux, MLA Naomi Yamamoto, Minister Stephanie Cadieux, and ICORD researcher Dr. Tania Lam.
PARC participant and Spinal Cord Injury BC staff member Kirsten Sharp works out on some of the PARC equipment as PARC Coordinator Megan Brousseau describes the equipment and exercise.
ICORD staff and PARC participant Yasaman demonstrates how to use an arm ergometer.
