Resurrecting Wheelchairs

By nick lo

19 Feb 2009

Bringing old wheelchairs back to life to be sent to Malawi Africa through Afya, a non-profit foundation.

Afya is a non-profit foundation that repairs, cleans and ships out second hand medical equipments to be used in medical 'clinics' in various parts of Africa. I say quote-unquote clinics, because like much else in parts of rural/bush Africa, resources are scarce and medical facilities are overwhelmingly under-equipped.

That particular day, we had the opportunity to work on wheelchairs, or what was left of them in scattered parts. Our job was to gather all the donated wheelchairs that were potentially fix-able and find the parts necessary - legs, brakes, mats, screws - to fix them.

At first these wheelchairs seemed in really bad shape, lifeless, bound for the junkyard. But as the day progressed and after parts, duct-tape, brakes and screws, were coming together in assembly, these old abandoned chairs slowly started coming back to life.

And this is how I came to capture these set of pictures.

These chairs seemed to possess a character of their own; a history of its own behind each seat - literally and figuratively speaking. Inside one of the pockets of a chair, was an American flag knitted box filled with Tarot Cards left behind by the last user. You really start imagining and wondering about the many people who were using these old chairs? what their conditions were? their pain? their story?

I think that's what made taking these set of photos very memorable for myself. I really saw personalities left behind in these old battered wheeled contraptions. It was a good feeling to see that these chairs were resurrected from the dead to once more give help, and hopefully hope for others.

To learn more about Afya and their vision please go to

www.afyafoundation.org