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 UPDATE: Everyone should check out Transitions’ great new website at www.transitionsfoundation.org.
Mobilization, health, rehabilitation, education, leadership…
The Transitions Foundation is committed to making a difference in the lives of Guatemalans who may otherwise have few opportunities to grow, to learn, and to become literate and productive contributors to their Guatemalan culture. They provide rehabilitation, vocational, and educational training to disabled persons through the services offered at Transitions’ training centers.
Program Objectives:
- To provide life-skills training and mobility devices for physically disabled Guatemalans;
- To offer outreach support and medical product availability to disabled persons;
- To operate one special education classroom within a local school in a rural community for physically and mentally disabled children;
- To operate an offset printing and graphics design enterprise, with ongoing disabled student training and employment opportunities, offering printing service available to the public;
- To operate a wheelchair fabrication facility, providing highly individualized wheelchairs and other therapeutic equipment, providing ongoing leadership and technical training; and
- To operate a prosthetic/orthotic clinic with ongoing training and services available to Guatemalans with disabilities.
Workshop: Transitions operates a well-equipped workshop where they manufacture new wheelchairs and repair or modify existing ones. This operation employs 11 technicians, the majority of which have disabilities, who build rugged chairs well suited for the tough terrain of Guatemala. They employ modern MIG welding and other fabrication techniques, and maintain computerized records on each client so they can respond quickly to needed changes or repairs. Funding for much of their equipment, tools, and materials has come from Rotary International Foundation Grants, coordinated by the Portland, Oregon Rotary Club, and many other donors. During 2008, their workshop provided over 100 new and refurbished wheelchairs.
Prosthetic/Orthotic Clinic: Transitions operates a clinic to provide services to children and adults who are in need of a prosthetic limb or an orthotic leg brace. Due to the high number of birth defects and accidents in Guatemala, there is a large demand and need for these services. They work with local Guatemalan certified technicians to evaluate and manufacture the limbs and leg braces their patients need. Patients fitted with their limb or brace can achieve increased mobility and opportunities in their lives.
Since 2002, Transitions has provided care and treatment for over 200 prosthetic and orthotic patients. Many of the patients are children or youth and require ongoing treatment and adjustments to their equipment. Due to the high costs of providing these special devices, new patients can only be helped when defined funding is available.
Training for life: Transitions Foundation provided direct general educational scholarships for 53 disabled people during the 2008 school year. This includes educational costs such as tuition, materials and transportation to and from school.
Special Ed: They also assist low-income, physically and mentally disabled children through one rural special education classroom directed by a qualified teacher and therapist. Special education students receive multi-sensorial exposure, fine and gross motor skill stimulation and academic tutoring. Classrooms are wheelchair accessible, and parents and family members are encouraged to become involved.
Transitions will host the MIT Mobility Lab, as they test out 30, specially designed wheelchairs.
To learn more about Transitions, please visit their website.
Children of the Americas has an ongoing need for donations of wheelchairs, prosthetic arms, legs and upkeep of prosthetic parts on previous donations. These items are needed in Guatemala for patients in our data base with O & P needs. We see many patients on our January team trips in Guatemala that have ongoing orthotic and prosthetic issues. Photos of current patients in need, as well as information on each patient, can be obtained by contacting Jody Greenlee, RN at green71957@aol.com
The Illini Prosthetics Team believes that every amputee around the world should be given a proper prosthetic arm replacement which is low-cost and functional. They are united in their cause to make this dream a reality. 25 million people around the world are missing one or more of their limbs due to landmines, violence, farming accidents, birth defects, disease, and other causes. 80% of these people live in developing nations. It’s clear to see the great need for a low-cost and functional prosthetic arm for these people.
The group is a team of engineers and business people who are working on both the technical and business sides of the problem of amputee empowerment. This work is done through weekly design sessions, business plan writing, and field work both in the United States and soon, at clinics around the world.
Jonathan Naber, the founder of the Illini Prosthetics Team, has developed a prosthetic arm made of low-cost materials that can be made and sold in developing nations at affordable prices. For his work, Naber is the first college junior to ever win the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize. The award, handed out by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recognizes researchers who make outstanding innovations for the betterment of society.
Naber, collaborating with the Range of Motion Project, is field testing three prototypes this summer in Guatemala with his five-member Illini Prosthetics Team. They aim to eventually begin mass production of the arm and provide the prostheses to clinics, hospitals, and NGOs around the world, especially in developing nations.
To learn more about the Illini Prosthetics Team, visit their website. To read more about Naber’s work on the prosthetic arm, refer to this article.
The World Health Organization estimates that 65 million people or 1% of the population need a wheelchair. 20 million is a conservative estimate of the number of people in the developing world who need a good wheelchair and do not have one. [World Health Organization Wheelchair Guidelines, 2008] Whirlwind defines a “good wheelchair” as safe, durable, locally repairable, and highly useable for the rider.
Whirlwind Wheelchair International is a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to improving the lives of people with disabilities in the developing world while promoting sustainable local economic development in the process. Whirlwind works to make it possible for every person in the developing world who needs a wheelchair to obtain one that will lead to maximum personal independence and integration into society. By giving wheelchair riders a central role in all aspects of design development Whirlwind ensures that chairs are appropriate for rider’s real lives in their real environments. For thirty years in over 40 countries Whirlwind has focused on producing durable, low-cost, and highly functional wheelchairs. These chairs give riders the reliable and functional mobility they need to reach their full potential. Whirlwind’s active adult wheelchair design, the RoughRider is used by 25,000 riders traveling over every terrain imaginable from muddy village paths to rough pot-holed urban streets.
In partnership with wheelchair buyers, Whirlwind provided 3,000 RoughRiders in 2008 and 3,500 in 2009. These chairs were produced through a network of regional, quality-certified manufacturers, which currently can produce 12,000 RoughRiders per year. Small wheelchair shops across the developing world produced many more Whirlwind chairs under a public domain licensing program. In Guatemala, Whirlwind partners with The Transitions Foundation.
Whirlwind’s main goals are to:
- Provide volume wheelchair buyers with excellent wheelchairs
- Improve wheelchair designs and production methods
- Promote international wheelchair standards and testing
- Support the Independent Living Movement
To learn more about Whirlwind Wheelchair International, please visit their website.
 The mission of the MIT Mobility Lab (M-Lab) is to fill a niche in the mobility aid community; NGOs and manufacturers in developing countries often do not have the time, resources, and skills to develop high-risk/high-payoff projects that would make drastic improvements to mobility products and the lives of disabled people. By collaborating with local manufacturers and experts from the developed world, M-Lab students use their ingenuity and science/engineering skills to produce technology that can mobilize millions of disabled persons worldwide. Furthermore, M-Lab programs teach MIT students how their technological abilities can be used to improve the lives of others.
Leveraged Freedom Chair: The purpose of the Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) project is to create a mobility aid specifically for developing countries. Conventional western-styled wheelchairs are nearly impossible to propel on the sandy roads and muddy walking paths frequently encountered in the developing world. The LFC has a variable mechanical advantage lever drive train that enables its user to travel 10-20% faster on tarmac than a conventional wheelchair, and off road like no other mobility aid available. The user effectively changes gears by simply moving his hands on the levers; grasping high increases torque while grasping low increases angular velocity. Human upper body force and power outputs were used to optimize the drive train geometry for optimal performance on a wide range of terrains. All moving parts on the LFC are made from bicycle components, making the chair manufacturable and repairable anywhere in the developing world.
Amos Winter, the chair’s chief designer, hopes to get his lever-powered wheelchair patented and produced in substantial numbers – priced at about $200 each – within two years. Partnering with Transitions, he plans to test 30 more in Guatemala this summer, thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Inter-American Development Bank, and then conduct wider tests in India. To read more about this project, please click here for a March 8, 2010 article published by The Boston Globe online edition.
Other Projects Being Developed by the Mobility Lab:
- Worldwide Mobility: Currently led by Danielle DeLatte, this donation network was inspired by the great need for funding. There are excellent wheelchair workshops in East Africa with long lists of people on their waiting lists. These wheelchair workshops lack funding, but provide better quality wheelchairs to their clients than the wheelchairs currently being imported and donated. The local wheelchair workshops have modified their chairs in response to the rougher terrain. By using locally made parts, these workshops’ products have replaceable components and can be fixed locally. If you are interested in donating to this project, please contact Danielle at mlab-web <at> mit <dot> edu.
- Business Wheelchair: Tish Scolnik originated the project, even taking the project abroad, working with partners at the Kilimanjaro Association for the Spinally Injured (KASI). In spring 2009, a new team led by Tish and made up of Bina Choi, Leah Hokanson, Chris Mills, Vicky Thomas, and Joseph Wallins continued her earlier work. They focused on three aspects of the multifaceted problem: an attachable stool to increase business opportunities, improving the attachable table model, and detailing the logistics of microfinance. The team worked with a community partner from Uganda, Fatuma Acan, to improve the design and feasibility.
- Tricycle Attachment: Wheelchairs are an excellent mobility device for within buildings. Unfortunately, it is difficult to travel over long distances using just a wheelchair. Because of this drawback, the tricycle is the wheelchair of choice in developing countries, where the ability to work is paramount. The creation of a tricycle attachment allows for travel over both short and long distances.
- Power Tricycle: This Powertrike group is working with the Association of the Physically Disabled of Kenya (APDK) to modify their tricycle wheelchair to be able to have a power assist. This is a design that APDK is very excited about having. It has the potential to be useful to trike users in Kenya and other countries as it would allow users who need to travel long distances a means of having the ability to move more quickly and not have to rely solely upon their body power. Having the ability to use a power assist on their trike could also allow users to be able to operate a small business with their trike such as a delivery service.
- The Figure-Eight Drive is an implementation of a Retro-direct bicycle drive train on a hand-powered tricycle. It provides tricycle users with a reliable two geared system. Users can switch between the two gears by changing the direction of their pedaling, with both directions resulting in forward propulsion. Pedaling in the standard forwards direction provides users with an approximately 1:2.25 cruising gear, while pedaling in the reverse direction allows users to climb and maneuver easily with a 1:1 gear ratio. The tricycle can freewheel in the forwards direction, though no backwards movement is allowed. The steering column can be rotated 180 degrees, allowing one to ambulate and freewheel in reverse.
To read more about the innovative projects that the MIT Mobility Lab is working on, please visit their website.
 Inteligencia Móvil Internacional de Guatemala or “IMI Guatemala” is a non-profit association that seeks to help people with disabilities in Guatemala by providing low cost and locally assembled wheelchairs.
HISTORY: IMI Guatemala is the pilot project of the U.S. non-profit Intelligent Mobility International, or “IMI. The idea started from a collaboration with students from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and students from Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala City. After a great first 10 weeks, the group grew to include students from another California based university, the Art Center College of Design, and soon after launched IMI.
As the first in-country subsidiary of IMI, IMI Guatemala creates a local presence, allowing for the best possible manufacturing, user feedback and appropriate design in the creation of low cost mobility devices including their first product, an award winning appropriate wheelchair. IMI and IMI Guatemala work together to create and develop an affordable, ergonomic, durable and low cost wheelchair, designed and assembled with wheelchair users from partner Transitions of Guatemala.
VISION: IMI believes that supplying mobility can change lives. With the help of low cost, appropriate mobility devices, those with limited resources can regain mobility and live an active and productive life. Their task is to empower people with disabilities who are living in both urban and isolated rural areas to have the tools to become reintegrated with their communities.
MISSION: To partner with local designers and in-country disability NGOs throughout the world to produce low cost mobility devices, supply training, and offer job opportunities. Every detail of their wheelchair design accounts for the developing world environment for which it was made.
To effect any lasting change in the developing world your product must integrate the following elements: Cost, Quality, and Sustainability. Their wheelchair accounts for all of them:
- X-brace: The function of the X-brace is to collapse the wheelchair so that it takes up less volume for storage and travel. Functionally, the X-brace supports and aligns the two sides of the wheelchair and distributes the forces to its structural members. Their unique design collapses the chair over 1/3rd of its width without compromising strength and at a minimal added cost.
- Footrest: The footrests have been designed to support the users’ legs and lower body while using the chair. In order to fully accommodate the needs of multiple disabilities the footrest position can be easily adjusted to maximize support. This design allows for the frame to collapse using an inexpensive and highly durable system.
- Tires: The terrain in the developing world is rugged and the infrastructure is not accommodating for conventional wheelchair tires. Mountain bike tires are ideal for this environment. Conventional wheelchair wheels have significantly less contact area than mountain bike tires and often little or no tread. Conventional wheels are more likely to get stuck, prematurely wear, and can even endanger the user. In addition to the improved safety and functionality benefits, the tires allow for an air filled ride by absorbing significantly more shock than conventional tires.
- Casters: The caster assemblies are an integral component of the wheelchair and serve multiple functions. The primary function of the casters is to distribute the force exerted on the front of the chair to the ground without compromising the wheelchair’s ability to turn. Their casters are capable of rotating 360 degrees in a smooth, uniform fashion under all user environments- while the chair is moving, stationary, and under considerable force. Furthermore their casters are unique in that their height can be adjusted to customize the angle of inclination of the seat. Integrating this angle adjustment feature allows IMI to further customize the wheelchair for specific end user needs.
To learn more about the work of IMI, please visit their website.
 Hope Haven International Ministries (HHIM) reaches beyond the borders of our nation by extending mercy to people with disabilities around the world. This is accomplished by working closely with relief and development organizations, mission groups and individuals in various countries.
In the early 1990’s, Hope Haven, headquartered out of Rock Valley, Iowa (USA), had an opportunity to get a first-hand look at the living conditions that persons with disabilities experience in foreign countries. Through this experience, a formal proposal regarding Hope Haven developing an international ministry was approved by Hope Haven’s Board of Trustees in 1993 and thus was the beginning of HHIM. Since then, we have expanded our Iowa based ministry to 9 other satellite shops located in Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota, as well as two international shops located in Guatemala and Romania. HHIM rebuilds donated wheelchairs, as well as manufactures the Hope Haven KidChair in both Iowa and Guatemala, and delivers them to people in need around the world.
Mission of Hope Haven International Ministries: The mission of Hope Haven International Ministries is to assist persons with disabilities to reach their potential. This purpose is accomplished by providing support for the development of opportunities for improving the economic and social welfare and independence of people with disabilities within countries and cultures throughout the world. This ministry, as with all of Hope Haven’s services, is “a ministry of Christian mercy based on the conviction that God’s Word speaks to and directs all of life.”
Hope Haven Guatemala: In the summer of 2008, Hope Haven’s Director of Operations moved to Guatemala to live full time and operate a new wheelchair manufacturing facility. Hope Haven is now employing wheelchair users and caretakers in this new shop. People are learning new job skills and making a standard wage, so that they are now able to provide for their families and learn new trade skills.
This shop is specializing in manufacturing the KidChair. After challenging the students of Dordt College, located in NW Iowa, to design a pediatric wheelchair to meet the specific needs of a disabled child living in a Third World country, the Hope Haven KidChair was born. With ongoing modifications and additions, as a result of continuous input from Engineers, Rehab Technicians, Therapists and families, The Hope Haven KidChair has evolved into a system which meets the needs of almost any child who requires wheelchair mobility while living in a demanding Third World environment.
Now manufactured in La Antigua, Guatemala the Hope Haven KidChair is being build by Guatemalans with disabilities. These wheelchairs from the Hope Haven Guatemala factory are given free of charge to children with disabilities in Guatemala, Mexico and Central America thanks to foundations, service clubs, churches and individuals that cover the $180 sponsorship per wheelchair.
To learn more about this group, please visit its general website, Guatemalan website (in Spanish), or view a video of the workers in Guatemala.
 The mission of the non-profit Range of Motion Project (ROMP) is to provide no-cost prosthetic limbs and orthotic devices in developing countries. ROMP recognizes the hardship of living in poverty without a prosthetic or orthotic device and understands how important these, often times simple devices, are to those who do not have access to them. In many cases, a prosthetic or orthotic device is a critical component in a disabled person’s rehabilitation. ROMP believes that with this “tool”, independence, mobility and involvement in community and the socio-economic structure can become more attainable. ROMP also believes that rehabilitation has the power to increase visibility of the disabled and awareness can change attitudes and help people see that “disability” is only as crippling as the barriers we let stand in our minds and in our world.
Since 2005, together with the help of trained prosthetists and orthotists, care givers, volunteers and generous donors, ROMP has provided 750 people with prosthetic limbs and more than 1,800 with orthotic devices. ROMP is involved in projects throughout Guatemala and Ecuador, with its flagship laboratory located at the Loren J. Mallon Centro de Rehabilitacion in Zacapa, Guatemala. The U.S. headquarters are in Chicago, IL.
This summer, ROMP will be working with the Illini Prosthetics Team to field test three prototypes of a low cost prosthetic arm.
To learn more about ROMP, please visit their website and their blog.
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