Project: Wheelchairs for Africa

Problem: 

"Horgan recently went back to Nigeria (his Mom's a schoolteacher there) and was very saddened to learn the village hospital had no wheelchairs... He is really moved to try and help personally...".

Solution:

Summary

A course "called 'How to Build a Wheelchair'..[was found at NursingCEU.com]...The course was developed by the nurses based on a course in wheelchair construction they took from a program at San Francisco State University (SFSU) called "Whirlwind Wheelchair International (WWI) International Wheelchair Program"...WWI's primary mission is 1) to teach wheelchair riders in developing countries to design, build, and repair their own wheelchairs...The WWI website...page titled 'Whirlwind Network Countries List…Wheelchair Shops Producing the Whirlwind Wheelchair (year founded)…'...shows that a wheelchair shop was set up in Nigeria in1993...Another page, titled 'Comprehensive Database of Whirlwind Shops, Mechanics,and Projects Around the World' has a link for West Africa that shows wheelchair shops in neighboring Ghana and Cameroon. The page provides contact information...A further page titled 'Development of the Whirlwind - Africa I Wheelchair…How do you make a simple folding wheelchair for Africa?' offers an Africa-specific streamlined design....A very exciting prospect of all this is that it may be a simple matter of placing a phone call, or sending an e-mail, to someone in the contact list above (or San Francisco State University), to get a wheelchair workshop setup in Horgan's village".

Detail

For a pair of nursing professional friends, Ann Johnson and Lauren Robertson, FOAO Member Cliff's wife Toni has been co-designing/architecting/developing/building an online training Website for Continuing Education Units (CEU) for Nurses, called "NursingCEU.com". The site enables nursing professionals to meet state requirements to keep their skills current by taking training, passing tests and garnering a certain number of CEU's per year, as required by law, by taking the courses online any time when its convenient.

One of the first courses the nurses put up is called "How to Build a Wheelchair". The course was developed by the nurses based on a course in wheelchair construction they took from a program at San Francisco State University (SFSU) called "Whirlwind Wheelchair International (WWI) International Wheelchair Program". The course and program address the fact that modern wheelchairs are expensive, made with high-tech parts and tend to break down more readily in the extra challenging environment of developing nations, where replacement high-tech parts are generally not available. The WWI website notes that 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's primary mission is 1) to teach wheelchair riders in developing countries to design, build, and repair their own wheelchairs; 2) to enable rider/builders to create businesses for the manufacture and distribution of wheelchairs to others… ". The program's custom-built wheelchairs are "ruggedized", built based on sustainable technology and made from local and readily available off-the-shelf parts.

The WWI website has a page titled "Whirlwind Network Countries List…Wheelchair Shops Producing the Whirlwind Wheelchair (year founded)…" that shows that a wheelchair shop was set up in Nigeria in1993.

Another page, titled "Comprehensive Database of Whirlwind Shops, Mechanics, and Projects Around the World" has a link for West Africa that shows wheelchair shops in neighboring Ghana and Cameroon. The page provides contact information (Organization, 1st/2nd/3rd Person, Address, Telephone, Fax, Telex and Email) for whom to get in touch with regarding wheelchairs.

A further page titled "Development of the Whirlwind - Africa I Wheelchair…How do you make a simple folding wheelchair for Africa?" offers an Africa-specific streamlined design.

Additional pages titled "Whirlwind Network Gateway" and "What's New" offer Newsgroup, Bulletin and Message Board services.

A very exciting prospect of all this is that it may be a simple matter of placing a phone call, or sending an e-mail, to someone in the contact list above (or San Francisco State University), to get a wheelchair workshop set up in Horgan's village.


To follow up on the next stages of the wheelchair project, listed below are links to all the sites mentioned above:

Wheelchair
Nurses Site
http://www.nursingceu.com/NCEU/courses/wheelchair/index.htm

Whirlwind Wheelchair International (WWI) site
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/

Whirlwind Network Countries List (wheelchair workshops Nigeria (1993))
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/general_info/countries_list/countries_list.html

Whirlwind Network Gateway
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/2020/index.html

WHAT'S NEW
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/general_info/new/new.html

Comprehensive Database of Whirlwind Shops, Mechanics, and Projects Around
the World (posted 4-05-99); West Africa
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/general_info/database/db4-99.html
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/general_info/database/shopsprojects-AfricaWest.html

Development of the Whirlwind - Africa I Wheelchair By Jan Sing
How do you make a simple folding wheelchair for Africa?
http://whirlwind.sfsu.edu/general_info/countries_list/africa/whirlwind-africa1.html



Project Task List: 

Methodology: Because FOAC does not have a formal business structure of managers, teams, task forces and the like, the current methodology is inspired by analogy to the Olympics "Starting the Games" mission  (which mission represents our given Project). A series of runners are stationed at 1 mile intervals ("Project Team Members"). An Olympics Committee Member (the Project Initiator) passes a baton (the current Project Task) to the 1st runner. The runner "runs the mile" (completes the Project task), then passes the baton to the next runner to run the next mile (complete the next Task), repeating this pattern until the last runner reaches the goal (Project Completion).  

The stage and status of a Project  over time is documented by "event entries" for Project Team Member, Project Task and Task Description/Notes, as documented below in the Project Task List Table: