Herstellung angepasster Rollstühle

In this project local people are trained to build wheelchairs appropriate to the local conditions and from local materials, so that maintenance and repair nay easily been done. This will ensure immediate service to people needing a wheelchair and also create jobs in Nepal. In 2004 the project moved from a workshop in Balaju to a workshop in Patan. Together with the change of place there occurred a change in design. The old models had four wheels of the same size, which allowed them a movement in rough terrain, but they where heavy and a second person was needed to push it. The new wheelchairs are similar to the usual design of wheelchairs with two bis wheels in the back and two small in the front. They are lighter and more handy, as it was wished by the patients, but this was paid for with a loss instability and a movement in rough terrain is nearly impossible.
	Also in 2004 we started a cooperation with an other workshop in the Terrai region which is building three wheeled wheelchairs. The design of these wheelchairs comes from India, where they are used for a long time already. It allows the user to move also for longer distances on fairly even terrain. Therefore these wheelchairs can only be used and are only distributed in the Terrai region. It is planned to build a three wheeled wheelchair also in Patan, which will be much smaller and easier to handle in the narrow roads of the cities. Pictures of a prototype are already available. Through the newly established contact to Handicap International we hope for a continuous improvement of our wheelchairs. Experiences showed that a project like this lives from its network. Besides the already mentioned contact to Handicap International we cooperate with a orthopaedic shoemaker and a workshop producing crutches, white canes and other orthopaedic devices. . Furthermore a good cooperation with doctors and hospitals is essential. They send the patients and care for them after they received their devices. An uncritical distribution of wheelchairs may lead to a progression of invalidity. For this reason, all patients served within the project need to have a prescription of a doctor.
Attached to the project is a physiotherapist, who has been trained by us. She supervises the patients and teaches them and their relatives how to use the respective devices. A special effort is made to avoid beds sores. An other aspect of her work is to introduce trainings to to the patients to treat their spastics and contractures.