By Sonya Yencer | Vice President, The Red Thread Promise
Since our last report, we have begun receiving requests from other NGOs and businesses in Haiti for our ATW wheelchairs. Word is spreading about these rugged chairs and how they are changing lives by giving people mobility in normally inaccessible areas.
During our last trip in July, our team was hosting a camp for disabled Haitians at a hotel at Kaliko Beach, about two hours outside Port-au-Prince. Several of our campers rolled around the hotel property for the week in our ATWs, not only navigating the patchy uneven concrete areas, but the sandy beach as well. At the end of our trip, hotel management asked us how they could get some of our wheelchairs for their handicapped guests. Since our team has yet to see a hotel or any other business offer accessibility in Haiti, we were thrilled to see a Haitian company taking an interest in implementing this in their facility.
Of course, we are excited for these opportunities and see this as an extension of our outreach to people with handicaps. It is our hope that, as we continue to distribute these chairs in Haiti, the local community will eventually turn their back on the stigma that currently surrounds disabled people in their country. Giving handicapped people mobility allows them to become more productive members of society, less of a burden on their families and gives the opportunity to develop much needed self-esteem.
You can be a part of this transformation, one wheelchair at a time.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
