News from the Poppa Guttmann Recognition and Celebration Project

The year 2012 will see the Paralympic Games return to their birthplace. Sir Ludwig Guttmann, endearingly known as “Poppa”, has done so much for spinal injured people everywhere, and yet there is no permanent tribute to recognise and celebrate his outstanding work and legacy. This is why the “Poppa Guttmann Trust” was formed, and big plans were made:

On the weekend of 23/24^th June 2012, former and present patients and staff from the National Spinal Injury Centre at Stoke Mandeville will get together in a grand reunion to celebrate Guttmann’s extraordinary achievements and to unveil an especially commissioned statue of this great man at Stoke Mandeville Stadium. There it will remain as part of a Paralympic exhibition until after the London Paralympic Games, when it will be moved to its permanent site outside the NSIC.

Interested in coming to the unveiling? You are more than welcome to join this free event! However, attendance is by invitation only, so we need you to register your interest online at www.poppaguttmanncelebration.org. This website will also give you more information about Poppa Guttmann, the whole project, ways to donate and to offer help.

The project celebrates Poppa Guttmann’s philosophy through the past, with the statue, the present, with the reunion at the unveiling of the statue, and the future, with the introduction of an on-going Arts Programme, as an additional option for patients to find and develop a perhaps undiscovered talent.