Bob’s Walk

The Rev. Bob Higham was a trustee of NLT for several years in the 1980’s/1990’s, and has done several long walks to raise funds for charity. This spring Bob is walking the 96 mile England-Scotland border with his daughter Shirley to raise funds for NLT.

Leprosy is a chronic disease associated with poverty, and although it is not very infectious, it causes severe and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes if untreated. This damage can result in those parts losing feeling, and without the safety net of pain, life becomes very difficult.

In Nepal, most people do manual work. With insensitive limbs it is very hard to avoid injury and the resulting burns and cuts get infected leading to the deformity that people link with leprosy.

NLT has been working in Nepal for over 40 years and runs one of the two busiest leprosy centres in the world. It has established a large and effective community development programme in the south east of Nepal which works with thousands of people affected by leprosy to combat poverty and the stigma associated with leprosy in the community. We have been very successful in this work and have enabled thousands of people to reintegrate with their communities and families, sometimes after years of isolation and ostracism.