The second person we visited last Wednesday was Richard, someone who received a small business wheelchair from Tish's project a few years ago. In 2000, Richard fell from a tree (sounds familiar) and injured his T-12 vertebrae. In the past nine years, he has had two wheelchairs - one imported chair, and one locally made. The imported chair lasted from 2000-2003, and he was able to get it through KCMC. In 2003, the problems the wheelchair caused compounded: it was difficult to maneuver, broken, and couldn't go fast because its two front wheels fluttered. One advantage though, was the foldability of the wheelchair. His second wheelchair that he got in 2003, has lasted these past six years. Yes, the paint is gone and it doesn't look brand new, but he has had relatively little trouble and a much better pay off. In the last six years, he replaced the bearings and got a new front wheel. Not half bad on this terrain. The major disadvantage of the locally made chairs is that that cannot fold up. Richard recommended that Worldwide Mobility should have a "what next?" focus as well, something I completely agree with. He said that once a person gets a wheelchair, he doesn't have a job and sometimes getting a wheelchair only means he can get out of bed in order to beg.
Richard is in front of his store in the picture to the right. It's important to have a plan. I think Tish's small business project would be an excellent companion to Worldwide Mobility. Even if we did not have separate "business" wheelchairs made, it is very important that we can provide people who receive the wheelchairs with some training to help them start a business. Tish's project is building a place for a training school. I think it would be fantastic if we could somehow merge the two projects, taking the best elements from each. From WM, raise money to help a person buy a wheelchair. Through kiva or some other means, acquire capital for small business loans. This would mean that people would need to demonstrate an ability and idea for a business. While a small business would not apply to children, it is a good idea for adults. It may be important to make further distinctions in the future or stipulate that a child be able to go to school. Perhaps (only if necessary) another donation for school fees? There's a lot to think about...
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so...question...
ReplyDeletepeople turn on wheelchairs by either moving one wheel, or moving the two wheels in opposite directions.
is there a way to manage a wheel chair with only two wheels? (one on each side, not a bicycle) without using the complicated balancing system found on those weird scooter thingies.
also...i noticed in the picture that the houses have a single step up to the porch...
is there a way to build some sort of mechanism so that wheelchairs can climb these by themselves (maybe one, two, or even 3 steps)?
obviously...climbing a flight of stairs would be possible, but costly to implement (i think), but simple climbing a step might not be so hard? but would greatly improve the accessibility of most places?
a two wheeled chair is very unstable. depending on the injury, that may range from difficult to impossible to manage. the third wheel is vital for balance and distribution of weight. the weird scooter things.. the ibot? I think that uses gyroscpoes, which would be difficult to implement in developing countries.
ReplyDeleteclimbing steps is actually a huge problem. richard and abdullah just popped over that step though... I have this other picture where it compared the step height to the wheel height. for the most part, these guys will pop a small wheelie. in the three wheeled chairs, it's much easier to do things like that than four wheeled chairs. to get into richard's shop from the back, they had to go up two steps, but they were spaced wide enough to be ok. all said, yes, being able to get up a few steps would be fantastic. do you have any ideas?
you mean aside from the system shown in Up?=P
ReplyDeleteI think if it's a few steps, having the person in the wheel chair providing the energy to go up would be dangerous in that kind of incline...
however, a lot of stair cases, at least the ones in business buildings and what not, have guardrails. would it be possible to design an interlocking pulley system, maybe like what rockclimbers use, that can, at the very minimum, provide a measure of safety when wheelchairs are being moved up the staircase, and possibly allowing people in wheelchairs to move themselves up? as for safety of the harnesses themselves...i think with good cable quality, and by attaching the cables at the right places on a wheel chair, it should be relatively safe.
might be able to attach the cables to the wheelchairs permanently, and normally store them in a couple of small boxes on either side of the wheel chair so that they are carried as they go
this is, of course, assuming that these office buildings do not have elevators
also, seems a bit overcomplicated for solving this problem...and probably needs a lot of testing before it can be implemented...
as for the two wheeled idea...i was thinking more along the lines of having like frictionless skids or something in place of the front wheel so that they dont interfere as much w/ turning...but i think wear and tear would make skids infeasible...so nvm about that=/