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Dave’s Story

Meet, Dave a little boy from Ghana.

Before Walkabout’s donation, Dave never had wheelchair. His mother used to be a caterer, but she had to quit job to stay home and take care of her son.

We met at our 2023 distribution in Ghana together with our partners, Orthopaedic Training Centre (OTC) and Kabaka Foundation.

We gave Dave a brand new wheelchair, transforming not only his life, but also his mother’s. Now that Dave has a wheelchair, his mother can go back to work and leave him at home with her neighbour, and she’s very excited to be able to take him to church and enrol him at a local school!

Anna’s Story

Meet Anna, one of the beneficiaries from Ghana. We met at our 2023 wheelchair distribution together with OTC Ghana and Kabaka Foundation.

Anna was diagnosed with Hydrocephalus when she was just 2 years old. Her dad has to work to provide for the family, so he often had to leave Anna at home, which was very isolating for her.

Before Walkabout’s donation, Anna had an old wheelchair that she had outgrown. Now that she has a brand-new custom-fitted paediatric chair, Anna can finally go to school, make new friends and be a lot more independent. Just look at that happy smile!

250 wheelchairs to Ghana

Last month, Walkabout Foundation teamed up with a new partner, Millennium Promise, and travelled to Ghana to individually distibute 250 RoughRider wheelchairs to adults and kids in need in the district of Bonsasso.

After endless hours of travelling from New York to London, to Accra, then Kumasi and finally to Bonsasso on multiple flights and bumpy roads, Carolina and Monica Gonzalez-Bunster arrived on November 14th to host a training programme to 25 local Ghanaian on responsible wheelchair provision, distribution and fittings. The training programme consisted of a day of theoretical classroom work (learning about World Health Organization disability guidelines) and a day of practical hands-on work (learning about wheelchair assembly and mechanics). The training culminated in going out into the surrounding villages to individually fit hundreds of beneficiaries to their new chairs.

There is one particular story that stands out among the hundreds we came across while in Ghana. It is the story of Adwoa who arrived crawling on his arms and legs. When he was 3 years old he developed a physical disability which prevented him from walking ever since, and as a result, has spent the last 30 years of his life crawling “like a gorilla” he says.

Despite his disability and never having sat in a wheelchair before, Adwoa, shoemaker, arrived to us with a smile on his face. When we began fitting him to his wheelchair, he asked if he could help. Before we knew it, he was adjusting the footrest, backrest, seat width, and seat depth of his own new wheelchair! He even began to carve his own pressure relief cushion. The smile on Adwoa’s face once he sat in his new wheelchair was priceless. This is the difference your generosity makes. Thanks to your support, Walkabout was able to give Adwoa not only mobility, but also his dignity back.