Get Maria a New, Properly Fitting Wheelchair

Hi, my name is Melissa Exton. In October 2022 I traveled to Mexico to represent Canada in the Miss Wheelchair World pageant. There I had the privilege of meeting beautiful and resilient women from around the world who are all fighting for change for those with disabilities.

One of those women is Maria de Leon Navarrete, Miss Wheelchair Guatemala and winner of Miss Photogenic at Miss Wheelchair World 2022.

Maria is a double above-the-knee amputee and uses a wheelchair for mobility. In Guatemala, the roads and sidewalks are not always paved or well maintained, ramps are uncommon and often poorly designed if they do exist, and if there are areas that are maintained they can be made of cobblestone - a wheelchair’s nightmare.

One of the first things that caught my attention when I met Maria was her wheelchair. Maria is a petite woman but her wheelchair is overly large and bulky. The frame is heavy and the wheel treads are worn completely bald. Her wheelchair was hard to maneuver on a smooth, flat surface, never mind the rough terrain in Guatemala.

When I asked Maria about how her wheelchair was working for her she replied that it made her life a struggle. She said that anytime she went anywhere she became very tired because her chair was too heavy and bulky for her to move very far. Help with daily activities and finding accessible transportation are luxuries that many disabled people around the world don’t have access to, Maria being one of them.

So this brings me to where you can help!

My goal is still to buy Maria a brand new, lightweight, durable, properly fitted wheelchair that is comfortable for her to be in and easy for her to move in, including a Posturepedic cushion for support. In November 2022 when we initially began fundraising, I was contacted by Rebecca Peters from the Transitions Foundation in Antigua, Guatemala. Transitions make custom wheelchairs in Guatemala, using materials that have been tested and proven durable for the terrain there, but remain as lightweight as possible. They offered to make Maria a wheelchair at a cost much less than having one made and imported from the United States. After consulting with Maria, we agreed to move forward with Transitions!

So why do I need to continue to fundraise? Custom wheelchairs are still EXPENSIVE -even in Guatemala! Why? A lot of technology and man-hours go into making them. Making a wheelchair both lightweight and durable to meet the needs of Maria and her environment took a lot of research and development. For example, Transitions noticed that Posturepedic cushions were often too expensive for their clients, so they designed their own foam material and had it manufactured in Guatemala. Then to meet the different needs of each different type of disabled body, they make cuts into the foam adding or moving support wherever needed to prevent pressure sores. They did the same with fabric and the variable climate. The best part is that most of the staff on the production side are wheelchair users getting paid a living wage!

So what does all of this mean? It means that our original goal of $5000 has been cut in HALF! By ordering from Transitions the total cost of the wheelchair will be approximately $2500, (with the variation in price being the exchange rate of the USD and the cost of transfer fees) about half of what we were estimating it would have cost to import her a chair. So far we have raised $650 or 26% of our goal. Now that we have picked and ordered Maria a wheelchair and have the final estimate of pricing, we are once again asking for Canadians to show the kindness that we are well known for around the world - and raise the rest of the remaining funds. Our goal is to have the remaining balance by April 28, 2023, in order to have it paid in full when Maria is ready to pick her new wheelchair up. 

On March 24, 2023, Maria traveled to Transitions and was measured and fitted for her new wheelchair. She met the AMAZING team of people behind the scenes who will be making her chair from start to finish and picked out features like the colour and push handles. When I spoke to her on video chat, she was very thankful to all of the people who donated so that she can have a better life on wheels.

Updated April 3, 2023