A Whitehaven family is calling on the local community for help in making their daughter’s wish to walk come true.

Six-year-old Hira Alkan has bilateral cerebral palsy and is in need of a life-changing operation in the US which would help her learn to walk.

But her family needs to raise £50,000 to cover the cost of the surgery and the post-op therapies and special equipment she will need for several years.

Her mum Iroda, 44, of Thwaiteville, Kells, is desperate for her daughter to have the same qualities of life as everyone else.

She said: “It would mean everything. It is my dream to see Hira walk. This is her last chance for independence. For her, anything is better than what it is now.”

Hira was born three months premature, at just 28 weeks. She had bruising to her head, body and legs with bleeding in her eyes and spent the first week of her life in intensive care at Middlesbrough Hospital before being transferred to the West Cumberland Hospital where she spent another two months in special care.

At the age of one, her parents became concerned about her development. She was unable to sit up, crawl, stand or communicate.

An MRI showed Hira had a reduced white matter volume, consistent with periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), a type of brain injury most common in babies who are born prematurely. Further tests confirmed she had bilateral cerebral palsy as well as being developmentally delayed.

Hira can only walk short distances with a walking frame and communicates with her family using an iPad.

The surgery, known as selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR), will be performed by world-renowned surgeon Dr Park at St Louis Children’s Hospital in the US.

This procedure, which Dr Park has performed more than 4,000 times, treats muscle spasticity caused by abnormal communication among the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles. It corrects muscle spasticity by cutting the nerve rootlets in the spinal cord that are sending abnormal signals to the muscles.

While Hira could have the operation in the UK, it was too long to wait for her family, and is said to be more successful the sooner it is carried out.

Her stepsister Yasmin, 20, said: “They said in England she could have it done, but she would have to wait a lot of years.

"Research says it’s vital to have it done before the age of six or seven so it has a better chance of working. We’ve been waiting ages.

“It’s so hard to watch her and you naturally compare her to other children. When you see the difference, it’s hard.

“Hira is so happy. I don’t think she understands at the moment but we can see the difference. You worry for the future and if she’s going to have normal life.”

Iroda added: “We are very grateful and blessed to have her and want the very best for her.

“We want to do everything in our will power to help her and hope that by giving her this chance of an operation it will give her a better quality of life and more chance of being able to move around more freely.”

To donate visit just4children.org/children-helped2020/hira-nazs-wish-to-walk/.