Fair Mobility

The Personal Energy Transport Project is a program that builds hand-made, hand-cranked, wheelchairs for use in the developing world, where environmental conditions such as terrain may not be suitable for traditional wheelchairs. It comes in adult and child size (pictured) and is sturdy, rugged, and has a caddy in the back for storage.

For the past 10 years, the program has operated through the United Methodist Church but was originally founded in Mel West’s garage. Now the organization has three building locations in Missouri, Florida, and Tennesee. All three locations are operated under the name of a church that performs missionary work in developing countries.

The Missouri chapter of P.E.T. has donated a few thousand wheelchairs to residents of their targeted countries.

The Columbian Missourian published an article about the people behind the Missouri chapter of P.E.T. and outlined the costs of the chair, which are very reasonable, allowing all finished chairs to be donated to the residents of Nigeria, Zambia, and other surrounding countries.

“…Offered in both child and adult sizes, each costs $250 to build. The operation’s costs, however, are offset by businesses around the country that donate or sell supplies at a discount…”

Local retirees do most of the assemblage, using spare parts such as bike chains, and do-it-yourself metal frames to complete the chairs if they are short on supplies or money. The chairs are shipped overseas using old clothing and rags for packing materials, and include a wrench and a tire patch kit.

The design is utilitarian and seems like it would work well for traveling short distances on flat terrain. The best feature of the Personal Energy Transport cart is the storage caddy attached the rear of the cart. It can be used for many things, including children!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 14th, 2005 at 10:58 am and is filed under New Wheelchair / Powerchair Products, Wheelchair / Powerchair Innovations, News to Us, Wheelchair Mods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.