| August, 2001 |
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International Wheelchair Program
Whirlwind Wheelchair International (WWI) is the communications hub of the Whirlwind Wheelchair Network of independent wheelchair-producing workshops in developing countries. Founded in 1989 as the Wheeled Mobility Center (WMC), WWI is dedicated to the social integration of people with disabilities throughout the world. WWI's primary goal is to develop a worldwide network of wheelchair inventors/designers, users, and manufacturers to address the need for wheelchairs in developing nations. WWI relies on wheelchair riders themselves to play the central role in all aspects of this effort.
General Information
The need for wheelchairs is tremendous. Twenty million disabled people in developing countries need wheelchairs, but less than one percent own or have access to them. This need is estimated by applying the well-known ratio of one wheelchair rider per 200 people in the United States to the four billion people who live in developing countries. In countries where polio and preventable amputations are still common, this is a conservative estimate.
How the Whirlwind Network Works
Q. Do You Make and Sell Wheelchairs in the United States?
A. No. Whirlwind wheelchairs are made only in developing countries for their local markets. They are not made in the United States or available to people within the United States. If they were made here they could no longer cost $150; that price is the cost of making a chair and selling it directly from the small shop to the consumer in various developing countries.
Q. Do you send wheelchairs, new or used, to developing countries?
A. No. It is important for wheelchairs to be built in developing countries. Wheelchairs imported to developing countries:
Q. So What Is In It for the U.S.?
A.Ralf Hotchkiss's work is creating a worldwide network of wheelchair inventor/builders to address serious problems of wheeled mobility around the world. Wheelchair riders everywhere have a great need for simple vehicles that will not only travel independently to rural destinations over rough terrain, but that will also serve as practical indoor wheelchairs when the destinations are reached. The industrialized world has made little progress in solving the problem of independent rural wheelchair mobility. More progress might have been made, but most people in industrialized countries can hop in a car or truck to get where they need to go.
Things are different in the Third World. On the paved roads, disabled people must be dragged, carried ... or left behind. But many are not passively accepting this situation; a gold mine of ingenuity and activity has developed among user-inventors in developing countries who are far more pressed by that mother-of-invention, Necessity, than are most Americans. By collaborating with riders and inventors in developing countries, Hotchkiss has greatly increased his - and his peers - likelihood of eventual success.
This Work is Not About Good Guys Giving to the Poor. It is about inventors in the industrialized world and the Third World collaborating together to build better wheelchairs. Members of the Whirlwind Network are continuing to come up with solutions useful to people with disabilities all over the world, including in the U.S. Given time and technical teamwork, user-inventors in developing countries are designing wheelchairs that will work in some of the roughest urban and rural areas of the United States.
Q. Do you hold wheelchair building classes at SF State?
A. Yes. Each Fall and Spring Semester, Ralf Hotchkiss teaches a whirlwind wheelchair building class at SFSU. If schedules permit and if funding is available, we also teach a summer intensive course.
For Further Information:
The activities of WWI's Whirlwind Network are based on disseminating and continually updating the design of the Whirlwind wheelchair, a lightweight, low-cost, high-performance, durable wheelchair designed to be effective in the rough urban and rural conditions of developing countries.
Sum have proven not to be consistently available, especially in all the types and sizes that are needed;
Sum have been difficult or impossible to repair (imported parts are required but are often not available); and
Sum have been ill-suited to the rough urban and rural environments of developing countries.
Whirlwind Wheelchair International
San Francisco State University
School of Engineering
1600 Holloway Ave
San Francisco, CA 94132
USA
Telephone (415) 338-6277
Fax (415) 338-1290
Email: whirlwind@sfsu.edu
http://www.cel.sfsu.edu/spring/conted/courses/engr620.html
