Give Mobility: Wheelchairs for Nicaraguan Children

Once a person gets a wheelchair there is no stopping them.  Many young people from the rural areas have never even imagined a wheelchair before our contact with them. So when they receive the wheel chair they are ready to mobilize and start moving to places they could not go before.  We have worked out a program to get into the rural areas to be able to identify the wheel chair needs and get the chairs to these rural communities.  In the rural area of Mulukukú  we have been able to identify people who needed wheelchairs and through the work of volunteers we have been able to get 10 wheelchairs to children, young people and adults in need in the rural areas.  

During this social political crisis we have had to find different methods to get the wheelchairs transported directly to the communities. In some ways this has been done very discreetly as much travel has been limited by the barricades throughout the country.  In the past mayors offices have helped the person who needed the wheelchair with transportation but during this crisis we have not had many city governments who have been functioning especially not in the social areas. 

The other problem that we have had to face is that because of the barricades and the violence the person in a wheelchair have not had accessible roads to get out of their homes to come for maintenance on their wheelchairs. Our team has been doing more home visits to check on those with wheelchairs because our wheelchair workshop is right in the middle of the barricades and has not been as accessible to those in need, basically we had to become a traveling workshop.

Presently we are doing some remodeling inside our workshop to make  more work and storage space and to improve the working conditions and security of the workshop. 

We are looking into the possibility of building adaptive furniture out of the heavy cardboard and compressed cardboard that we get in our recycling center.  This adaptive furniture will include parts of wheelchairs. Our hope is that more  people will be able to become mobile through wheelchairs. Staff  have been working throughout this crisis to ensure that we realize this hope by finding alternative ways to ensure mobility.