Give Mobility: Wheelchairs for Nicaraguan Children

Jordi often suffered from very frightening convulsions as a child. Still, he always dreamed of growing up to be a father and a caring adult. His mother brought him to the activities at Special Families to be with other children who also had epilepsy. He met many children, even children, in wheelchairs. He began assisting them in transportation, helping them get in and out of the vehicles to go home. He was so busy helping that he didn’t realize that he no longer had convulsions. His mother noticed, and she was busy talking to doctors and therapists to make sure that Jordi was really outgrowing his seizures. Finally, the neurologist said he could try living without the convulsion medication. He was very curious about the wheelchairs and soon got a job working in the wheelchair workshop. Each year, several groups came to train young people in wheelchair repair and maintenance, and Jordi was always helping others. He was shy but always curious and always wanting to learn. Now he continues in the workshop. He has become an expert in sign language and assists other staff in communications. Since there have not been any containers with wheelchairs for a few years, Jordi has moved into other jobs through the wheelchair workshop.
He just finished helping build an annex to the turtle pond, doing every job needed, and pruning the big trees in the park. He and other young people from the wheelchair workshop keep busy. Recently, another organization received a container with wheelchairs. Jordi is willing to travel to that part of the country to assist in wheelchair distribution. They have to give out 64 wheelchairs. He will also help us collect the old wheelchairs from these children and come back and build wheelchairs here in Matagalpa.
We are very grateful to Jordi, who is now married and has a young son who has curly hair just like his Dad. Still, he does not have to worry about convulsions like he had to when he was young. Jordi and the other members of the wheelchair workshop are grateful for your support of their project because they see the need for young children to have that extra opportunity to have more mobility with dignity.

Links:

• wheelchair workshop

Mobility with dignity most of us don’t even think about our mobility. It is something taken for granted. When we started the wheelchair workshop, almost no one had access to wheelchairs and other mobility aids. Now with the restrictions, it seems to be getting back to that again. There have been different projects where groups tried to make access more available, like the man who made wheelchairs using plastic chairs. Then there were the wheelchairs made with plastic roping.
What these projects did not take into account is the posture of the person in the wheelchair.
The workshop staff is working on innovative strategies to use the existing resources of the wheelchair workshop to assist people with mobility and accessibility issues. They plan more visits to the neighborhoods to identify mobility, accessibility issues, and needs, coordinating with the social unit. They continue to work on the maintenance and repair of wheelchairs. This is a service that makes a big difference for people who already have a wheelchair.
We do not anticipate having any new wheelchairs enter the country this year. So we are working on other mobility aids like walkers and canes, finding ways to help people as they struggle to improve their mobility. We are experimenting with making canes for blind people. We have a model and hope to produce that type of cane and work with the blind association to distribute them.
Fitting wheelchairs to the person and their particular physical condition is essential. This has always been our aim, and this is what our young people received training to do. We continue to keep this priority even though we have less and less access to wheelchairs. Our staff has taken some time each week to try to improve their skills in adapting wheelchair parts. Recently we received some unexpected help from several schools in Matagalpa. They informed us that they are collecting throughout the city to find people who have wheelchairs or wheelchair parts in their homes that they no longer are using. Our staff of young people with disabilities is kept busy doing maintenance on wheelchairs. So this collection is very welcome and is a sign of the support that the wheelchair workshop has in the community. Many people are grateful for the work and generosity of the workshop. At the workshop, we are thankful for all of your support. Thank you for standing by us to keep working for mobility with dignity.