Wheelchair skills are demonstrated in a workshop for students of the Medical Faculty, Sri Lanka. Photo: Motivation Charitable Trust

The Wheelchair User Support Program

Implementing Partner: Motivation Charitable Trust

Funding Period: September 2004 - September 2012

Amount: $2,702,781

Purpose: Address the physical, social, and economic needs of persons requiring wheelchairs.

Project Components focus on five key areas:

1. Poverty: Improve access to wheelchair funding for poor and marginalized wheelchair users in all program regions
2. Rights: Develop rights-based peer group training in all program regions to ensure wheelchair users are aware of their rights and how to access them
3. Services and Capacity:
   • Establish more than twenty-five new professional wheelchair services in Africa and Asia
   • Enhance the capacity and competence of more than twenty-five disabled people's organizations that deliver sustainable services to wheelchair users
4. Products: Ensure that wheelchair services provide wheelchair users with a comprehensive range of wheelchairs from which to chose
5. Collaboration and Dissemination: Ensure that all stakeholders involved in providing support to wheelchair users collaborate and coordinate their activities to maximize the quality and range of services available to wheelchair users

Within its Wheelchair Program, USAID is teaming with Motivation Charitable Trust to implement a comprehensive program that addresses the physical, social, and economic needs of wheelchair users. The project covers the geographical regions of South and Southeast Asia, East and Southern Africa, and Eastern Europe. It works with local partners to implement goals in the five key areas of poverty, rights, services and capacity, products, and collaboration and dissemination.

To address poverty, the project seeks to ensure that even the poorest people with disabilities are afforded access to appropriate, well-fitting wheelchairs, and that wheelchair users are provided access to employment opportunities that will enable them to support themselves and their families.

To ensure the rights of wheelchair users, the project organizes peer-group training for wheelchair users by wheelchair users to demand and access their rights.

Since 1999, Motivation has worked with the USAID-funded TATCOT program to train wheelchair technologists on appropriate methods of wheelchair production and distribution. Today, the project works with local partners to design and produce low-cost, environment-appropriate wheelchairs.

Finally, the project works to strengthen collaboration between organizations involved in wheelchair production. For example, the project worked with Mobility India to host the first external “Fit for Life” course. Both wheelchair prescription and fitting courses were run by Indian staff with nominal support and input from Motivation.