The World Has an Urgent Need for Pediatric Wheelchairs
Josleen’s mom knows better than anyone that wheelbarrows are meant to carry dirt, not people. But here she is, gripping the handles of her old wheelbarrow pushing her beloved 16-year-old daughter through the rough streets of Haiti.
Trying to ignore the stares and the ache in her shoulders, Josleen’s mom keeps moving. Because today, like never before, there’s hope ahead. She heard that Joni and Friends is holding a Wheels for the World™ outreach, and maybe—just maybe—this is Josleen’s last humiliating ride in the wheelbarrow.
What happens when a child can’t get a wheelchair?
The World Health Organization (WHO) studies the impact that a wheelchair can have on a child and reports that:
“For children, wheelchairs provide a sense of freedom, independence, and inclusion necessary for their physical, emotional, and social development.”
Sadly, the WHO also estimates that as few as 3% of people in low-income countries can access the mobility-assistive products they need—like wheelchairs. And, of course, when a family can’t access a wheelchair, the fault lines cut deep. Start with the child… instead of going to school, making friends, and experiencing dignity and belonging, they chronically miss out and get left behind. But the damage doesn’t end there.
Lack of pediatric wheelchairs hurts children, families, and communities.
Catherine Russell, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), shared about key findings from the Global report on assistive technology:
“Nearly 240 million children have disabilities. Denying children the right to the products they need to thrive doesn’t only harm individual children, it deprives families and their communities of everything they could contribute if their needs were met.”
Immediate family members and caregivers share in the pain, sacrificing opportunities to earn income, and depleting their own bodies to carry their loved one in their arms or on their backs. The results? Deepening poverty and despair.
A Wheelchair Can Change a Life (like Josleen’s!)
Serving people with disabilities across the globe, Joni and Friends staff and volunteers often meet parents and caregivers who carry children in their arms or on their backs, even as heavy teenagers. We even see people resort to transporting a child in an outgrown stroller, on a mattress, or…in a wheelbarrow.
This brings us back to Josleen and her mom in Haiti, arriving to a warm welcome from our Wheels for the World team who assessed Josleen’s complex needs. And when they lovingly placed her in her own custom-fitted wheelchair for the first time, everything changed.
Imagine what it felt like for Josleen to get comfortably seated in her wheelchair, upright, with a whole new outlook. And think of her mom—the rising joy in her heart, watching Josleen being treated with dignity, not to mention the relief of saying “good riddance!” to the days of pushing her in a wheelbarrow.
You Can Meet the Needs of a Child Living with Disability
Like you, Joni and Friends sees the urgent need for wheelchairs—particularly pediatric wheelchairs—to relieve the suffering of children and families living with disability. As our Chief Operating Officer Jason Holden says:
“The need for a wheelchair and the hope of Christ is growing every year. I know, because even after every Wheels for the World outreach, every single one that I go on, we leave hundreds more waiting. And sadly, most are children.”
You can be part of changing lives by providing wheelchairs and Bibles to people with disabilities in developing countries. Each wheelchair gets hand-delivered and custom-fitted by qualified seating therapists to its recipient. And every person and family served also hears the Gospel from a local pastor and receives a Bible in their language.
Support Joni and Friends
Will you bring hands-on help and the love of Jesus to a child in need?
