Lightweight bamboo wheelchairs helping Kenyan children with disabilities

In Kenya, this wheelchair for children could be the design of the future.

According to youngsters who've tried these alternative bamboo wheelchairs, they are lighter, more robust and easier to use.

This workshop in Kijabe is making the wheelchairs for Bethany Kids -a charity that aims to help disabled youngsters find independence, enabling them to get to school where they can study and make friends.

Traditional wheelchairs are usually imported and too expensive for many Kenyan families to buy.

According to the Bethany Kids website the organisation has matched 3,096 children with wheelchairs since 2017.

But this is a new experiment according to the charity.

It says as well as importing low-cost high quality wheelchairs shipped to Africa, it is also experimenting with various 3D printed and other made-in-Africa wheelchairs.

The aim being to ensure that every wheelchair is perfectly fitted to the needs and challenges of each child that requires one.

Technicians are cutting, treating and assembling locally sourced bamboo into wheelchair frames aimed at producing an affordable product.

The bamboo is treated to protect it from termites before being cut and measured, while many of the remaining components are also sourced from local manufacturers.

The organisation estimates the bamboo wheelchairs could cost less than 10,000 Kenyan shillings ($77) to make.

"In our country, we don't have paediatric wheelchairs. These are wheelchairs for children. Also the wheelchairs that are out there are meant for adults," says Joseph Kompe, assistive technology lead at Bethany Kids.

"There's a big gap for children's wheelchairs. That's why we really wanted to bridge that gap."

Kompe says imported wheelchairs typically cost between 45,000 and 80,000 Kenyan shillings ($350-$620), placing them beyond the reach of many households. The challenge is even greater for children, as paediatric wheelchairs are scarce and often unavailable.

8 year old Annabell Ndanu has brittle bone disease and for now is using this traditional wheelchair.

Her mother Caroline Nduku says a wheelchair would have been far too expensive for her to afford.

"When it came to getting a wheelchair for my child, when it was time for her to use one, let's just say that I didn't have the means to get her one, I didn't have the means at all because I was doing casual jobs. And to tell you the truth, the money I needed to buy a wheelchair for my child, I couldn't have managed because I needed almost 50,000 Kenya Shillings ($386). So by luck, well-wishers gave my child a wheelchair. And if they didn't help me, my child wouldn't have any wheelchair to use," says Nduku.

Ndanu received her first wheelchair at age three, allowing her to interact more easily with other children.

But transportation remains difficult because not all public vehicles can accommodate wheelchairs, often forcing the family to hire a private car, adding to the cost of travel.

The prototype wheelchairs at this workshop are designed to be lighter than conventional metal models, making them easier for users to propel and for caregivers to lift into vehicles.

"Bamboo is very strong. It's strong and very light," says Joab Matumbai, assistive technology program manager at Bethany Kids.

"Weight has been the biggest issue, especially for transport purposes. The parents and the users want to cut on weight."

Nineteen-year-old wheelchair user Patrick Ngugi and his friend Peter Njuguna are putting these bamboo prototypes through their paces.

"This wheelchair is lighter than the metallic ones," Ngugi says.

"The portability of this wheelchair, since it's made of bamboo, is easier than the metallic ones. My wheelchair is metallic. It's heavier than this one, and it breaks fast."

According to Kenya's National Council for Persons with Disabilities, about 500,000 people with physical disabilities need wheelchairs, highlighting the scale of the unmet demand.

And this huge need can only be tackled by promotion of local manufacturing. And also the local manufacturer, when they use our local material, that material can withstand our local environment. Like we have terrain that needs strong material that can withstand our environment and when it's locally manufactured, it enables the manufacturer to customise this particular wheelchair to fit that particular individual," says Leonard Dawafula Juma the Senior Disability Services Officer at the National Council for Persons with Disabilities.

"The local manufacturer, when they use our local material, that material can withstand our local environment. Like we have terrain that needs strong material that can withstand our environment and when it's locally manufactured, it enables the manufacturer to customise this particular wheelchair to fit that particular individual," he adds.

For now, however, the bamboo wheelchair remains at the prototype stage as developers continue testing its design and durability before wider rollout.