By Glynnis Grainger
CHRISTIAN Brother Olly Pickett and his Wheelchairs for Kids charity will produce their 20,000th wheelchair donated to disabled children overseas by the end of last month.
In May, they sent 327 wheelchairs to Iraq and, in June, will send 130 wheelchairs to Tanzania and 130 wheelchairs to Vietnam, all built with volunteer labour.
Br Olly told The Record at his Wangara workshop that they have a minimum of 104 volunteers a week working at the workshop and hundreds of ladies making rugs, cushions and toys throughout Australia.
He also said hundreds of people were raising funds and twice a year the organisation sends out a newsletter telling people where their funds have gone.
A total of 200 schools are involved in the project and 170 Rotary clubs and Lions clubs throughout Australia, including Curtin University, doing anything from barbeques, to saving aluminium, to fundraising, Br Olly, 70, said.
“For the last 11 years, Visy Board have funded all the cardboard cartons, the State Government pays the rent and the Scarborough Rotary Club pays the overheads,” he said.
“The Christian Brothers supply the utility – the whole project is voluntary.
“By the end of June, over 5,000 wheelchairs will have gone to Vietnam.”
Br Olly is the workshop manager; Gordon Hudson, 78, chief executive, a volunteer and past-president of the Rotary Club of Scarborough, has management experience and does the accounts, and Bob Sheridan, 69, is workshop coordinator and puts out the newsletter.
Br Olly is also an honorary member of the Scarborough Rotary Club and community leader at Edmund House, Wembley where he lives with other Christian Brothers.
Gordon said: “It makes it easier for fundraising that none of their money is used for overheads. We just produce the wheelchairs according to the money we have and make 300 a month.”
Since 1998, there have been eight model changes to the wheelchairs, over 13 years, with a three-wheeled model the latest, suitable for rough terrain. The average age of the volunteer workshop workers is 73, and their ages range from 69 to 90.
The more complicated and accurate requirements in manufacturing the new wheelchair required some components to be machined by outside companies.
A secondhand, computerised drilling/milling machine was offered to the workshop at a very reasonable price by a Brisbane merchant. WA engineer Noel Watson went to Queensland to look at it and snapped it up.
This three-tonne machine, the latest addition to the workshop, was transported free by Toll Express, paid for by a donation from St George Movies by Burswood and set up voluntarily by local engineering workshop Non Ferrous Machining.
Apart from making accurate parts, this machine is saving $20 per wheelchair and will pay for itself in four months.
The strength and durability of the new prototype of wheelchair required extensive testing and, as there was only one set of this particular equipment in Australia and in the Eastern States, the cost of the testing was prohibitive.
They were given an offer by the UWA Engineering Department to build and donate this complicated and specialised equipment.
Gordon said: “Our wheelchair came through the original life/strength testing without problems and all future modifications can be again checked inhouse.”
The new, rough terrain wheelchair, built to World Health Organisation standards and adjustable for all sizes of children, is now in full production.
The wheelchair was designed with input from the Non-Government Organisation Motivation, an organisation with extensive experience in the provision and correct fitting of wheelchairs to people in under-resourced countries.
Motivation will hold a training session in East Timor in July, where the wheelchair will be demonstrated to representatives of WHO and other worldwide organisations. Two proud volunteers from the Wangara operation will be attending.
The cost of producing this high-tech wheelchair with special cushion is only $125 because it is a 100% voluntary organisation which is now also making and supplying postural support devices and padded straps for the many who need them.
“Every wheelchair means so much to a young life,” Br Olly said.
Donations can be made to PO Box 1175, Wangara DC, WA 6947, phone and fax: (08) 9409 3633, or to Wheelchair1@optusnet.com.au, or
www.wheelchairsforkids.org.