It’s unacceptable that any child miss out on an education because of not having a wheelchair, and Wheelchairs of Hope is doing something about it. Wheelchairs of Hope is an initiative based on the belief that mobility from early childhood is a gate to education, and that access to education creates a new generation with improved skills, higher self-confidence levels, and more hope for the future.
The UN, the WHO, and two Nobel Prize winners are backing the work of Wheelchairs of Hope. With production sites spanning three different regions, Wheelchairs of Hope will be able to guarantee shipment of their chairs to anywhere in the world for $100. The long-term goal is to produce one million children’s chairs over the next seven to ten years.
Wheelchairs of Hope has developed, designed, manufactured a wheelchair specifically for children, and provide the wheelchair to children in need of mobility. The goal is to increasing self-confidence, independence, and access to education through mobility for these children.
The World Health Organization estimates show that 65,000,000 people worldwide need wheelchairs, and that 20,000, 000 of these people don’t have access to them.
25% of that 20 000 000 are children in underdeveloped countries.
That’s 5,000,000 children, and their lack of access to a wheelchair has drastic consequences for each child individually and for developing countries on a macroeconomic level (from Guidelines on the provision of Manual Wheelchairs in less resourced settings- World Health Organization 2008):
– Children who need a wheelchair and can’t get one are unlikely to go to school or receive any formal education, resulting in a significant loss of annual personal income in adulthood compared to adults who received 6 years of education – a gap of US $440 to $1100. (from The Social and Economic Impact of Illiteracy: Analytical Model and Pilot Study – UNESCO)
For more information about Wheelchairs of Hope, visit their website.
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