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Boy carried two miles to school inspires a locally-made wheelchair mission in Malawi

Mobility is a gift that empowers and opens up a whole world of possibilities.

Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

Justin's first wheelchair led to a mission for mobility in Malawi.

If a child has a disability that requires a wheelchair in the United States, we generally assume they'll be able to get one. If a family can't afford a wheelchair, we know there are programs and resources that can help fill that need, so the idea that a child wouldn't be able to go to school at all because of a physical disability doesn't really cross our minds.

That is the reality in many parts of the world, however. In developing nations with limited resources, kids with mobility issues often languish at home, unable to participate in or contribute to many aspects of community life. Especially in rural areas that are far from large medical centers and services, kids with disabilities can slip through the cracks and lose the opportunity to get an education.

wheelchairs, malawi, malawi wheels, disabilities, mobilityMalawi Wheels Country Coordinator Gelson Mtinga poses with three new wheelchairs.Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

Behavioral therapist Danielle Kama encountered that reality while volunteering on international service trips during college at San Diego State University. After her first service trip took her to Tanzania, she returned every other year, helping to build schools or teach English. After college, she became a Christian and started doing mission work as well, which eventually led her to Malawi.

Malawi is a small, majority Christian country in East Africa, landlocked between Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia. Approximately the size of Pennsylvania in area, it's also one of the poorest nations on Earth, with the majority of its population living in rural areas and doing cash crop and subsistence farming. Approximately 70% of Malawians live in poverty by international standards.

It was in Malawi that Danielle met Justin, an eight-year-old living with mobility differences. Danielle was helping with a children's program when she noticed Justin sitting on the ground while playing with his friends.

disability, wheelchair needs, malawi, kids, childrenJustin may not be able to walk, but he loves to play soccer.Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

"He had the biggest smile on his face, just like beaming from ear to ear," Danielle tells Upworthy. "And all the kids were around him, also smiling. They just kind of ran off to the next cool thing, and then I noticed him start to crawl, with his arms dragging his knees. He couldn't walk, but he kept smiling while trailing all the way behind these other kids trying to keep up."

"I don't even remember thinking, 'That's so sad'," she adds. "It was just really beautiful to see his joy despite the mobility difference."

Danielle visited with Justin's family to find out what kind of needs they had. She found out that Justin's father carried him to school, two miles each way, so he was able to attend. But most kids in Justin's circumstances aren't that fortunate. In fact, according to the 2018 Population and Housing Census, approximately 11.6% of Malawians aged five and older have at least one type of disability. With only 14 prosthetists and orthotists, 200 physiotherapists and assistants, and 15 orthopedic surgeons serving the entire country, Malawi has a limited number of professionals to address mobility and disability issues.

"It kind of became my mission to see if it was possible to get [Justin] a wheelchair to at least make that easier for him and his family getting him to school," she says. "And I found quickly that there's not a lot of options or organizations in Malawi for making or donating wheelchairs."

wheelchair, disability, mobility, kids with disabilities, malawi wheelsJustin in his chair with his brother and a friend.Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

Danielle managed to track down a chair for Justin, but knowing the need was greater than just one child, she became determined to find a way to get more wheelchairs made locally. She met an "amazingly clever and funny" Malawian named Richard, who was a wheelchair engineer. After he trained three welders in his craft, Danielle hired them to start a wheelchair-making operation, now known as Malawi Wheels.

"So that was in December of 2021," Danielle shares. "And then in February, just two months later, [Richard] died of a heart attack. Terrible, terrible. But I truly believe God allowed his knowledge and passion for making wheelchairs for kids to be transferred to our team before his death. And I know that it was really meaningful for his wife to have that legacy live on through now Malawi Wheels."

malawi wheels team, wheelchair makers, helpers, team, engineersThe Malawi Wheels team, left to right: Samuel George (wheelchair engineer) Esther Anthony (office manager), Emmanuel Fred (wheelchair engineer), Stevie Wilson (fieldwork manager), Gelson Mtinga (country director) , Oscar Tamatha (wheelchair engineer) Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

What started with Justin and Richard has now become a team of six men and women, all local Malawians, who identify children with mobility needs, build wheelchairs for them, and deliver them. Danielle says that so far about 200 kids have gotten wheelchairs from Malawi Wheels, which are all made and repaired locally.

"We believe that local needs should have local solutions," she explains. "All of our materials to make wheelchairs are purchased in Malawi so that we can 1) repair them in Malawi and 2) we can give back to Malawian-owned businesses and of course the local economy. So all of our team is local Malawians, our supplies are purchased in Malawi, and our wheelchairs are built and delivered in Malawi."

group, Malawi, Malawi Wheels, crowd, ministry, missionMiracle and his community the day he got his wheelchairCourtesy of Malawi Wheels

Danielle says there are advantages to staying local and not being part of a large international organization. There are non-profits that give millions of wheelchairs away on a global scale, which Danielle praises, but she says there can be issues with not being able to repair or find replacement parts for wheelchairs shipped in from other places. Additionally, as kids outgrow their chairs, they may not have anyone to contact to get a larger one because the chair was just dropped off for them.

Malawi Wheels wheelchairs are custom made for each child so they are safe and their individual needs are catered to.

Man repairing wheelchair; child smiling in a wheelchair, Malawi Wheels, kids, disabilityOscar puts finishing touches on a wheelchair (left), Rose with her mom after getting into her Malawi Wheels chair for the first time (right)Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

"We really like being small right now," Danielle says, "because we're able to carry those 200 children and really hold them and see their story. Our desire is not just to give a wheelchair, give a handout, and then leave. We want to see their progress, repair wheelchairs, make updates, sustainably support the family for the future with some of our programs like parent support groups, which focus on more of the financial, spiritual help for the parent, and then our small business programs, which focus on empowering families financially so that they can support their children long term."

This holistic approach to service is purposeful. The support groups where parents of kids with disabilities gather to pray for one another and provide mutual support also receive physical therapy educational training to better help their children with their needs.

"We transport licensed physiotherapists to the groups to focus on parent training for exercises so that they can take those exercises home and then continue them daily with their children," Danielle shares. "And the main purpose for a lot of these groups is to try to defeat some of that isolation and discrimination that these parents experience."

parent support group, emotional support, physical therapy education, malawi wheelsParent groups provide emotional and spiritual support as well as physical therapy education for parents of kids with disabilities.Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

It's not uncommon in Malawi for a child born with special needs to be seen as cursed or as a punishment from God for a family or individual. It's also a common and accepted practice for a father to leave the family if a child is born with or develops a disability, so there's a lot of stigma and discrimination that follows these kids.

"That leaves, of course, a lot of single mothers caring for their children alone and a lot of lonely mothers and families," says Danielle. "So our goal has been to start new communities for those parents and caregivers that share that common bond so that they can lean on one another, because there are common struggles and common joys that come with having a child with special needs that can then bring them together and help them feel not so alone. So yeah, we kind of get that emotional spiritual care but then also that physical care because we have the physical therapy embedded within the groups as well."

Malawi Wheels also provides business support to help the families become more self-sufficient financially.

"We recognize that a lot of the time, special needs does mean special expenses like medical equipment, monthly medicines, hospital care, so one solution we've found that can be be helpful is coming alongside those families to assist them in starting their own business so that with the profits they can better support their child long term. Again, not just giving a handout that's not going to help them in the long run, but sustainably supporting them. So, when a family is interested in starting a business, we start with a one-on-one small business training for them, we help them make a business plan and then we supply a grant or a no-interest loan, and then we support them through the building process and check in bimonthly for updates. And we found that this can be a huge help for families."

Businesses are often small grocery businesses, selling various items like tomatoes, cooking oil, eggs, etc. Some families also start cooked food businesses like a French fry stand—known as chips in Malawi—or selling small donuts called mandazis.

Danielle says their research over the last couple of years has indicated that no-interest business loans tend to be much more effective than grants. Having the responsibility and accountability of paying the money back, even without any interest, seems to be more empowering to recipients than being given a grant, leading to greater success. Continuous learning helps the organization hone their programs to have the most impact.

It really all comes down to ministering to people's needs holistically, says Danielle, with the mission being for "people to come away with an understanding of Christianity that reflects God's love for his people, especially regardless of ability, regardless of looks, regardless of religion. Because we believe that God created everyone, that everyone bears his image, that he loves everyone, that he really wants healing for his people, mind, body, and soul. So that's why we focus on that holistic model of helping. Of course, we want to provide spiritually, but we're also there to help with physical needs because that's what Jesus did. He didn't just offer prayer. He offered physical healing and provided for physical needs. So I think that collision of faith and works is really important."

malawi wheels, wheelchairs, non-profit organization, group photo, ministryDanielle and her son with the Malawi Wheels team.Courtesy of Malawi Wheels

As for Justin, he's been thriving with his increased mobility.

"After receiving a chair, we've seen Justin become so social in his community," Danielle says. "Every time our team visits the village he's from, they always pass him on the road and see him at the soccer fields or with his friends. He's always out, every time I go to Kabekere where he's from, he is always along the road somewhere."

Additionally, the physical therapy Justin has received through the parent support group has helped him gain enough strength and balance to be able to use a walking frame for short distances. He's also become a soccer coach for his team of friends.

"I've seen him play soccer, too—adaptively, of course—but he'll sit on the floor and swing his legs to kick it to his friends," says Danielle. "So just seeing that now he's even a soccer coach and how involved he's been in his community since being able to have that mobility and independence is so cool."

Mobility truly is a gift that empowers and opens up a world of possibilities. Learn more about the Malawi Wheels mission and see how you can support their efforts here.

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They tested a seat so people with disabilities could ride a camel. Here's how it went.

On edge of the Sahara Dunes, a few miles outside of the Moroccan town of Merzouga, a camel named Omalise seems to suspect something is up.

On her back is a bulky contraption — a tall fabric seat held in place by metal piping and tied down with a tangle of unfamiliar straps.

Image by Eric March via Morocco Accessible Travel Consultants.

It doesn't hurt, but it's not her usual saddle, and it's definitely not heavy enough to be a rider. Unclear what the attentive crowd of rapidly chattering humans around her wants her to do, she tries to stand up.

Within milliseconds, three trainers hustle over to coax the confused camel back to the ground.

"Of course, right now, the camel is a bit uncomfortable with the situation, but she’ll get used to it," says Mbark, Omalise's handler, through a translator. Mbark has lived semi-nomadically around the pack animals his entire life. For the past 12 years, he's worked in the country's booming tourism industry, facilitating camel excursions for visitors who want an up-close-and-personal introduction to the desert.

Today, he's spending his evening preparing his impatient camel to give tourists with disabilities the opportunity to experience the type of Hollywood epic-worthy trek through the desert sands they imagine when they dream of his home country.

Riding a camel has long been out of reach for travelers who lack full mobility, but Morocco Accessible Travel Consultants (MAT) hopes to change that with the advent of a custom saddle that mimics the action of a wheelchair on the animal's back.

The seat is the brainchild of Erik Neufeld and Jeremy Schmidt, who purchased the tour company in 2016 with the goal of providing their disabled clients access to the country's full range of historic sites, restaurants, markets, and natural attractions.

Getting a client onto a camel and over the dunes (a "classic Morocco" experience, according to the pair) is a problem that has perplexed them from day one — and one they believe they're finally getting close to solving.

Omalise. Image by Eric March via Morocco Accessible Travel Consultants.

"There were other parts of Morocco where we were like, 'Yeah, we can see how this will work accessibility-wise,' but the desert, that was constantly, 'How do we make this work?'" Neufeld explains.

In a few weeks, a colleague from Eastern Europe who studies the effects of equipment on a person's body is coming to test the saddle. To prepare for her visit, Neufeld volunteered to be the saddle's first human guinea pig.

In an effort to meet the deadline, Neufeld, an aircraft mechanic by training, is working furiously with Mbark, a local welder, and Schmidt, a physical therapist by training to make sure it can support a disabled rider without discomforting or harming accommodating animals like Omalise.

An early stage version of the seat. Photo by Erik Neufeld.

"We have Moroccans, Americans, Eastern Europeans all working together to make it possible for someone to experience the desert in a unique way," he says.

For the estimated 1 billion people worldwide living with a disability, traveling the globe is slowly becoming easier.

Beginning in 2014, the United Nations World Tourism Organization began holding conferences on accessible travel, establishing a set of guidelines and goals for nations to make their iconic sites more hospitable for disabled tourists.

In places like much of Morocco, where accessible infrastructure often coexists with ancient buildings, narrow streets, and impassable staircases, companies like MAT work to fill in the gaps.

"If we advertise something as accessible, people have certain expectations of what that is," Neufeld says. The company designs itineraries for its clients to maximize the amount they can accomplish independently — and organizes transportation and accommodation around their particular physical needs.

The camel chair is an ambitious step beyond MAT's usual expertise. The centerpiece of the device is an articulating seat that adjusts with the rider's body. Moveable armrests allowing for simplified transfer between wheelchair and seat, and a custom frame allows the rider to slide neatly into a traditional saddle.

Ultimately, Neufeld and Schmidt hope to make the chair available to Moroccan children with disabilities as well as their tourist clients, allowing many to experience the Sahara for the first time.

Still, it's a work in progress.

On a second try, Neufeld attempts to hoist himself into the saddle from a raised platform.

In a rush to climb aboard, the platform tips under his weight and Omalise, spooked by the activity, stands up again.

Image by Eric March via Morocco Accessible Travel Consultants.

After wrestling her down, Mbark and his team work to calm the anxious camel, tying her at the knee to prevent further surprises.

"If [Neufeld] falls, no one cares, but if our client falls, that’s a bigger issue," Schmidt notes, wryly.

Before finding MAT, Jane Romm, a teacher from New York, was skeptical of taking any sort of organized tour of Morocco.

Like many independent travelers, she prefers setting her own schedule to traveling on a set guided itinerary.

Since her husband was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she and her family have continued to travel the world, developing new strategies along the way.

"My sons and I, we’re like a well-oiled machine the way we handle the wheelchair," Still, her husband's declining mobility made exploring the North African country on their own a daunting thought.

Ultimately, having a trained physical therapist on staff at MAT, and a driver who refused to leave her husband in the van once, even spending an evening running from restaurant to restaurant attempting to locate an accessible restroom — confirmed the value of a trip designed around their specific needs.

Jane Romm (C) and family in Morocco. Photo by Jane Romm.

"We looked at each other and were like, 'Why didn’t we ever do this before?" she explains. "What’s wrong with us? Why are we trying to conquer the world ourselves?'"

On his third attempt to test the chair, Neufeld finally slides from the platform into the seat. The handlers release the ropes and Omalise stands on cue.

As she trots nonchalantly along the sand, Neufeld rocks back and forth in the seat, trying not to engage the muscles in his core — simulating the potential effect of the ride on a client who lacks upper body strength.

Image by Eric March via Morocco Accessible Travel Consultants.

He sways unsteadily, like an exhausted club-goer who's had one too many, as Mbark and crew spot him from below. It's hard to watch. But he finishes the ride without falling.

For Neufeld, the test run was a "wild cocktail of exhilaration mixed with some anxiety" — a promising start, though a harrowing one.

"In many ways you could compare it to being on a roller coaster," he says.

Meanwhile, Mbark, observing from the ground, continued to noodle on prospective modifications.

"Because we have a new saddle here, it’s very common with new saddles that they don’t have good balance," he explains. "Once we figure out the balance issues, it will work great."

The crew hopes that adding more ballast to stabilize the seat, while making its metal frame less rigid and more adaptable to the fluid motion of the camel, will steady the chair.

After an exhausting hour of testing, Omalise sets off toward home on her own, as Mbark speeds off along a different route on his motorbike.

Neufeld, meanwhile, plans to make some modifications in the morning. Until then, he will continue risking his own body to make sure the project remains on schedule.

For those who live abroad, traveling to Morocco isn't an essential experience, and it's certainly not one available to everyone with a disability.

For those lucky enough to get the opportunity — Schmidt and Neufeld are working to provide far more than access ramps and bars on the toilet for travelers to a place they feel fortunate to call home.

"To go see the desert, to go see the ocean, to see the mountains [in the U.S.], you’re talking about multiple days and plane trips," Schmidt says. "Here you can do it all in the same week."

Riding a camel might not be something most people need to do. But life is more than things you need to do. So, yes, a few hours bopping around the desert is not necessarily going to make or break anyone's life. But for travelers with disabilities, a working accessible saddle could open the world just a little bit wider.

With a little luck, the camels will learn to see it that way too.

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The brilliant way this woman brought the Women's March to the disabled community.

'People who are disabled are here and we can help in a million ways, especially with Internet access. Do not write us off as less-than or incapable.'

Sonya Huber, a professor at Fairfield University, very much wanted to attend the Women's March in Washington, D.C., on January 21. Her autoimmune diseases, however, posed a problem.

While she can walk, the diseases take a toll on her energy, and she fears exhaustion after extensive mobility would overtake her. And she's not alone. 22% of American adults are living with a disability, and 13% of adults have trouble with mobility.

Even though a record-shattering number of people with a disability are expected to attend the Women's March (perhaps the most in United States history), that shouldn't prevent the countless others who want to show their support, but physically can't make it happen.

So Huber, along with a few like-minded individuals, decided to create a virtual march for activists for whom the Women's March proved inaccessible.

Image via Disability March.

"I think that especially with big marches, the logistics of getting in and out of a city can be prohibitive," writes Huber in an email, although she believes the Women's March has been very active and responsive in terms of marchers' needs.

Their mission is the same as the Women's March, part of which states "in the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore."

Participants are signing up on the Disability March website by entering their names, a photo, and a short explanation of why they're marching.

When she was younger and had more mobility, Huber admits she didn't always give the disabled community the consideration it deserves. Of course that changed when she herself became disabled.

Image via Sonya Huber.

"I struggled for a long time with putting myself in that category because social stigma and fear makes that category seem something separate and very hard," Huber wrote in her Disability March bio. "Hello, ableism and internalized ableism."

Today, she knows all too well how much that stigma negatively affects the disabled community and has thus made it her mission to turn it around.

"People who are disabled are here and we can help in a million ways, especially with Internet access," wrote Huber. "Do not write us off as less-than or incapable."

The response they've received from the disabled community has been overwhelming, which proves people were indeed looking for an accessible activist outlet.

Participants have been asked to tweet messages of solidarity using the hashtag #DisabilityMarch and direct tweets at elected officials explaining why better health care matters to them. Their goal is to make themselves as visible as possible — virtually speaking.

in solidarity from the global south, #WomensMarch #MarchingForward #DisabilityMarch

A photo posted by Shahana Hanif🍌🍌🍌 (@sha.banana) on

The Disability March is a reminder to allies as well as elected officials that the disabled community has a voice and deserves a space in protest movements.

In the next four years, there will likely be many more calls to action and moments of protest, and accessibility should be a key consideration of those organizing.

As is evident by the Disability March, and the many other disabled activist movements currently taking shape around the country, people living with disabilities are just as capable of fighting for their rights as anyone else. Just because some of them may need to do it from home doesn't mean their action will be any less effective or should be taken any less seriously.

Sometimes, in the rush to get a movement organized, the disabled community gets left out or tacked on at the end as an afterthought. At a time when their rights may be among those most threatened, they should be at the center of activist agendas, not the outskirts.

As the conclusion of the Women's March mission states, "We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us."

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For less than $8K, France's new electric car could revolutionize clean transportation.

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Natural Resources Defense Council

Cars are an expensive — but often necessary — part of life. And electric cars? Forget it.

That tends to be a problem with a lot of sustainable products: the overhead is just too high, even if it does ultimately pay for itself in the long run.

Unfortunately, this still leaves proponents of clean living in a a pickle. The only reason that fossil fuels seem more affordable is because of the infrastructure that's already in place.

How do you get people to make a large-scale shift toward greener transportation (which would bring prices down for everyone) when most of them don't have the cash for that initial investment?

The obvious answer is to just make them cheaper — and that's exactly what France is doing.

At the COP21 Climate Conference in December 2015, French Minister of Economy Ségolène Royal announced a global competition to create a small electric car that will sell for less than $7,500 (about 7,000 euros).


Ségolène Royal. Photo by France Ecologie Energie/Flickr.

According to Gizmodo and speaking through a translator, Royal explained that her goal is to "create an electric car for the people" — something light, small, and fast-charging that "may not look like traditional electric cars."

To help keep costs down, the French government is encouraging the use of replaceable batteries (not unlike the innovative Gogoro Smart Scooter), which can be easily swapped out and replaced at designated charging stations throughout the country.

Presently, the next-best option in electric transportation (for those of us who can't afford a $45,000 Tesla) is India's e20, which costs around $15,000. The Renault ZOE is also available in France for around the same cost, plus 49 euros a month for battery rentals.

The Gogoro Smart Scooter. Photo by Maurizio Pesce/Flickr.

The ultimate goal, of course, is to incentivize the development of affordable, sustainable transportation all across the world.

"The problem arises for other countries: they worry that if we stop the exploitation of fossil fuels, it hinders development," Royal explained in an interview with 20 Minutes (roughly translated in-browser by Google).

"It is therefore imperative to drive down the price of renewable energy to provide these countries the same level of development as the industrialized countries that have reached the using in the past, fossil fuels."

There will inevitably be cynics who question the lack of specifics available thus far in France's cheap electric car plan. But what matters more right now is the country's willingness to take these kinds of risks.

Photo by Jeremy Keith/Flickr.

And considering the tremendous strides that France has already made in sustainable development, there's no reason not to take them at their word.

The affordable electric car initiative was only one piece of a four-part plan that will double France's already considerable investments in clean energy.

That new plan also includes:

  • A commitment to bring the country to at least 20% electric vehicles by 2030 (part of the Paris Declaration on Electro-Mobility and Climate Change and the Zero Emission Vehicles Alliance). As noted in the official statement, “The higher volume of orders will help reduce production and marketing prices."
  • An additional 2-million-euro investment in MobiliseYourCity, which aims to facilitate transport planning projects in 20 cities in developing and emerging countries (and is only one part of an even larger global initiative).
  • Solar. Freakin'. Roadways!(OK not exactly this, but close enough.) Over the next five years, the government plans to deploy at least 1,000 kilometers of "energy roads" that incorporate photovoltaic cells to generate electricity.

Photo by Steve Jurvetson/Flickr.

Clean and affordable transportation is just one step toward a brighter future. But it still makes a difference.

Like I said, the only reason that fossil fuels are cheaper is simply because that's the infrastructure that's already in place. But if that same infrastructure had been established with a renewable, non-carbon-based fuel source, it would cost us even less — without the added bonus of environmental damage.

But because of that infrastructure that's currently in place, the only way to enact wide-scale change is to go all-in and make it happen — and that's exactly what France is doing.

Together, we can create a new global infrastructure that works for the people and the planet, instead of just the pockets of a few corporations.

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