Give Mobility: Wheelchairs for Nicaraguan Children

All I want for Christmas is a wheelchair.  How can someone resist this type of request?  Mobility is so important for some of our young people and children that they are putting all their hope in mobility for Christmas.  Familias Especiales has been working hard trying to find new ways for wheelchairs to enter into the country. The need is great and there are very few openings for wheel chairs to enter now in the middle of this crisis.  But we are working round the clock trying to find a solution.  Not only are we checking on leads here in Nicaragua but our partners in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ohio, are also collecting and looking for any leads of containers entering into Nicaragua.  We feel a little bit like elves in Santa’s workshop as we try to build chairs out of the spare parts that we still have in the workshop.  It has been three years since we have received a container, in the past we received one every year. We think we have a good lead for 2020 but not in time for this child. The problem is that the containers now are covered with red tape that is not Christmas ribbons but many new restrictions and rules, which will take a lot of time to complete. In the meantime, we are doing a survey and collecting any used wheel chairs that we have given in the past and renovating them to be used by other children. Our social team is visiting neighborhood by neighborhood.  It would not be so bad if we were just looking for standard adult wheel chairs but we need chairs that are specialized. But even the standard wheel chairs for adults are moving from our workshop very rapidly because people just do not have access to wheelchairs because they are not made in Nicaragua, and we are living with so many restrictions.

At the same time our young people on the wheel chair team are using the same talents that they have in creating, adapting and fitting wheel chairs in other areas so that they do not lose their jobs.

Our team includes three young men who were born deaf and mute and one young man who has convulsions which he has to take medicine to control.  They have developed many skills in the wheel chair workshop and their priority is to adapt and fit wheelchairs. One of our therapists recently had a course by the World Health Organization on wheelchairs. We just will not give up on our dream of mobility for Nicaraguan children and young people, because we know that we have you on our side.  We are very grateful for your support and we continue to work like elves and wish you a very Merry Christmas, with visions of wheel chairs dancing in our hearts together for the children, until they come to Nicaragua.

Links:

• wheel chair workshop fotos