Plan of action
A small team will deliver 50 Participant Life ‘Wildebeest’ chairs in the winter of 2024-2025. Participant Life are an American B Corp whose focus is creating affordable, durable and high-quality chairs which are accessible to everyone. We feel it makes complete sense for us to be working with a company with such similar goals and who has experience providing wheelchairs to low middle income countries. We will be using their all terrain chair which is customisable to the user, easily maintained with popular bike and motorcycle parts and designed with use outdoors in mind - a perfect fit for our mission in Senegal.
Members of our team in Senegal will aid with communication and integration with rural communities and provide on-the-ground support in selection of recipients as well as the fitting and delivery of chairs. A large network is already in place throughout Senegal and this will greatly aid in finding suitable recipients.
Our recipients will partly be selected with our partners ASSOCIATION RÉGIONALE DES HANDICAPÉS MOTEURS DE ZIGUINCHOR who are a Disabled Community Group based in Ziguinchor, the capital of Casamance, and will also be chosen from rural areas where they do not have the support offered by a group like the ARHMZ. Several of our recipients have already been selected. Our eligibility criteria can be viewed here.
We will be running a three day camp in Cap Skirring, Casamance for all of our recipients and other members of the local disability community. The main focus will be providing a platform for workshops ran by members of the Diam Rek team and the local community in which skills are shared (we are looking forward to partnering with the Wave Project Bristol for some of these activities). Some of these will include physical activities (such as surfing, kayaking, yoga), wheelchair skills, wheelchair maintenance and mindfulness. The idea behind this is to promote the opportunity for growth and resilience and to develop personal goals by working outside of individuals comfort zones.
We will also be aiding a member of our Senegalese team in his mission cleaning the wounds of school children in rural areas and are going to provide crutches for an individual within the Casamance community who has reached out to us.
A short film will be made documenting the teams journey and the stories of each of our recipients. This will be used alongside social media to enable the public to partake and experience in the project and witness the personal impact of provision of the chairs.
