Project Motivation, a wheelchair for everyone

By Martina Tobing

JAKARTA (JP): Let's say a disability has confined you to a wheelchair for life. You must go shopping for one. But where to go and what kind to get?

Western society has a large range of choices -- for a price. For anywhere between US$800 to $3,000 you can satisfy your physical, functional and esthetic needs. What will it be: a standard chair with removable armrests and swing-away, elevating legrests? A recliner, maybe with a head support? A child-size chair or a large adult one? A light-weight sports chair?

Indonesia however, as in many other developing countries, has none of these choices and in general has very little to offer in the field of wheelchairs.

After polio paralyzes a young child, a back injury takes the life out of a young adult's legs, or an illness puts an end to the ability to walk -- the victim often has very little choice but to waste the remainder of life in bed or a chair at home or an institution for the lack of a wheelchair.

And while many of the physically disabled can usually learn a skill or a trade if not an academic profession -- few, if any, are gainfully employed within the "normal" society.

Most of those who are working do so in a sheltered workshop producing handicrafts. They are the lucky ones. They not only have received some form of rehabilitation, they are able to finance the purchase of some kind of wheelchair.

Up to the present time, the majority of wheelchairs here have been imported, either from the Western world or from some Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan or Singapore.

The problem with the Western-made chairs is that they are prohibitively expensive for most, too big for the smaller Indonesian bodies and not built for the rough terrain of both city and kampong.

In addition, when they break down, their parts are irreplaceable.

The chairs from neighboring Asian countries are also too large, quite expensive for the majority of Indonesians and lack the adaptability needed for this country as well.

British help

However, help has come to Indonesia in the form of a British charity named Motivation. This organization was established in 1990 and designs low-cost wheelchairs in and for developing countries.

The founders, Simon Gue and David Constantine, after winning a competition during their college years designing a wheelchair appropriate for developing countries, more or less rolled into the project as they were sponsored to go to Bangladesh to take a look at the wheelchair situation there.

While living in a tin shed they assessed the chairs which were copies of ancient British ones made out of water pipe and therefore extremely heavy, and much too large for the many children occupying them.

This was when they developed their basic concept: to build wheelchairs with locally available materials that are cheap, adapted to the people's needs and locally repairable.

Bangladesh was followed by Poland, Rumania and Cambodia. In each country there were new problems to overcome, adaptations to be made. Gue, with a background in industrial design, experienced learning about rehabilitation and its differences in each country.

Constantine, skilled in computer aided design, tested each new adaptation for appropriateness. He has been in a wheelchair himself for many years and knows what is needed.

As many young people have a chance to get a chair only once in their lifetime, they have designed an adjustable foot plate which can "grow" along with them. In Poland and Rumania there are no elevators in apartment buildings, therefore light-weight chairs were essential.

Training to pull oneself up and down several flights of stairs while seated in the wheelchair became part of the program.

In Cambodia, where no steel was available, the team successfully designed a mahogany chair, which could be flat- packed and sent throughout the country.

Indonesia

The team started working out of Fatmawati hospital a couple of months ago. Specific designs are being made for wheelchairs to accommodate use in rural areas.

A whole new idea of shoulder action is being developed where the sides move independently from each other to accommodate going over rough ground without getting stuck.

The project here will last about a year. The first phase, revamping the workshop and adapting it to wheelchair-bound workers, is almost completed. A total of six people will be employed, producing about 300 chairs a year.

The team is readily available for presentations about project Motivation at any fund-raising activity. They can be reached at their office: Telephone number 769-0168; Facsimile number 720- 7786.

"Once the workshop is up and running it will be self- sustaining, as each wheelchair pays for the next to be made," said Gue, adding that it will take a minimum of 20 chairs a month to obtain that goal.

Joanna McCurrich, the nationwide distribution coordinator, says each chair, adapted to local needs and meeting Western quality standards, will cost about Rp 200,000 or US$100, an eighth of the Western price.

Kusnan, a local paraplegic who has been in a wheelchair since 1981 and who will take over McCurrich's job in the near future, says that even that price will be too much for the common people.

Therefore, a Wheelchair Fund has been set up for the needy. It will be operated by Wisma Cheshire, a home for independent wheelchair-bound people.

McCurrich is trying to raise money for the Wheelchair Fund. "Our hope is that organizations, companies and individual businesses are willing to contribute," she said.

A commitment of funds for one or two wheelchairs a year from any organization or individual is their aim.

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