Give Mobility: Wheelchairs for Nicaraguan Children

"Wow Sister look what we just found! " The wheel chair workshop is on a discovery trip in its own facility.  David is visiting from USA and readied a truck load of equipment to be sent to a rural area on the border of Honduras, to help people who have no other sources.  We are running out of wheel chairs, but are discovering spare parts and therapy equipment that we did not know we had because we always had so many wheel chairs that it covered over some of the other equipment in the workshop.  What a start to 2019. 

Right now it is impossible to even think about containers entering the country, that is how we have received recycled wheel chair  since 2001:  one container a year.  At present we do not have any wheel chairs ready to fit but we are inventing them with all the equipment and spare parts that we do have in the workshop.  We are also receiving old and used wheel chairs from people around the country.( mostly in very bad condition) With David’s visit which is the only visit we have received in 2018 from someone outside the country since the crisis here in Nicaragua, we are working on strategies to get wheel chairs. We have been the only source of specialized wheel chairs in the country and now we have no wheel chairs.  This is a crisis for us, and for the many people who are in need of specialized wheel chairs. We don’t even have standard wheel chairs.  David is working on some type of help coming from Honduras or from other sources but NGOs have not been able to receive shipments from outside the country, in fact many companies have not received containers everything has been stuck in Customs or people just don't want to risk losing the shipment.  We continue to offer other auxiliary mobility aids and repairs on wheel chair and maintenance. We had one little boy fall alseep as we tried to solve his problem with an aid instead of a chair.This is the first time the workshop has been so empty since we started, so we are finding all kinds of spare parts and equipment.  We took advantage of David's visit to learn how to use some of it and are locating equipment with different children in need.  Aldo who I featured in another report is busy every day inventing pieces for wheel chairs from our spare parts and discovered treasures. There is no place that manufactures wheel chairs in Nicaragua.  

Miguel is the new director of the wheel chair workshop and he is busy opening up spaces and organizing and supervising staff to make chairs out of scraps. WE JUST DO NOT GIVE UP!  There is such a need but even the biggest shippers have had problems and did not send wheel chairs after April 2018 so the country is in need of wheel chairs.  David was here in early 2018 where we gave out about 20 wheel chairs. As soon as David left the crisis in Nicaragua started. ( no connection  with his visit). So all of our great plans rolled right out of the workshop. We had expected to receive the container in June, and we were going to work on getting more chairs into the campo/rural areas during 2018.   Now in 2019 we are in this crisis and there are people in need. Stay tuned to FE as we keep exploring alternatives, because Mobility is our value, and you can't stop our values.