El Salvador

Four wheel chairs

Following Motivation's successful project in Nicaragua in 1996, we were asked to research the potential for establishing a similar wheelchair production and distribution service in El Salvador . Although there are no official statistics, estimates suggest that there are over 100,000 people in El Salvador who need a wheelchair but do not have one, including many people injured in the civil war. The few wheelchairs that do exist are more often than not poorly made, break easily and cannot be repaired.

With our local partners in Nicaragua , we ran an 18 month project to establish the sustainable production and distribution of low-cost wheelchairs in El Salvador . Training of the Salvadorian team, mostly wheelchair users themselves, was undertaken by the Motivation trained Nicaraguan team. This further developed their skills and enabled us to develop a technology transfer approach that can be further replicated in Latin America in the future.

Project Dates
May 1998 to November 1999

Local Partner Contact Details
CESTA (Centro Salvadoreno de Tecnologia Apropiada)
Sr Mario Jesús Lopez
Kilómetro 4 Carretera a San Marcos 392
San Salvador
El Salvador

Telephone: + 503 222 6480
Fax: + 503 226 6903
E-mail: jesuss@navegante.com.sv / cesta@es.com.sv