From: Clifford J. Thompson [cliff@cresswell.net]
Sent: Thursday, March/27-03 5:56 p
To: AfricanOutlet Horgan Edet; Horgan & Judah African Outlet; Clifford
J. Thompson; AfricanOutlet Ziggy Thelwell; AfricanOutlet Tony Moses;
AfricanOutlet Parisa Farvid; AfricanOutlet Dr.Ibrahima Wagne;
AfricanOutlet Clarence "Gus" Brown; AfricanOutlet Chris Diegelman
Subject: Horgan's Wheelchair for Africa: A Candidate System
Hi Judah, Horgan and monthly 1st Sunday meeting group,
At the last Sunday Meeting Group, Horgan mentioned that, during a recent
visit to his village in Nigeria, he was dismayed to learn that the hospital
there had no wheelchairs and that, since then, he has been deeply concerned
with trying to find a way to get some wheelchairs to the hospital. I
mentioned this fact to my wife Toni recently and she became very excited,
because a project she's been working on of late, bears directly on a
possible solution to this problem.
For a pair of nursing professional friends of ours, Ann Johnson and Lauren
Robertson, 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.
At this point I would like to "pass the baton" on this project to the "next
person" in the Sunday Meeting Group, particularly someone who may be able to
participate more than once a month, who may already be visiting African
Outlet on weekends and can connect with Horgan for specific details on the
village, hospital and the like. Since we are a fledgling organization and
don't have a lot of community presence yet, it may behoove us to put our
best "professional foot forward", when following up with San Francisco State
University's Whirlwind Wheelchair International national and international
representatives. It is not my intention to "make work" for anyone in the
group, nor to be presumptuous in recommending a selection, since we want to
rely on volunteerism and/or a previously agreed upon selection/election
process. Since this is a medical application, I ask, "Is there a Doctor in
the house?" and so can think of no better man for the job, to represent us
in this project, that our very own Dr. Ibrahima Wagne, if he is free,
willing and up for the task.
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
Regards,
Cliff Thompson
Mediameister,
San Francisco
Robotics Society of America (RSA)
RSA Legacy Website Creator
http://www.robots.org
Contributor,
NorCal Mobile Computing SIG
http://www.mobilecomputingsig.com/reviews.html
Founder,
San Francisco Bay Area
& Silicon Valley
AIBO Club (SFBASVAC)
http://www.robots.org/AIBO/
cliff@cresswell.net
(650) 954-6070 (mobile)