It's been estimated that at least twenty million people in developing countries need wheelchairs, but less than one percent have the ability to get them. Without wheelchairs, people with disabilities are often isolated in dirt huts or left to beg on the sides of roads, unable to maintain a viable existence. Yet, even for the small percentage of those with access to wheelchairs, most chairs imported from the U.S. and Europe do not hold up on rough terrain, dirt roads, or cobblestone streets. In A Wheelchair for Petronilia, award winning Producer Bob Gliner (Schools That Change Communities, Barefoot College, Lessons From the Real World) examines the challenges the disabled in developing countries face and the efforts of Transitions Foundation in Guatemala to build and provide wheelchairs suitable for Guatemala's habitat. Run almost entirely by people with disabilities, this non-profit organization not only employs the disabled themselves to design and build the wheelchairs, but in the process provides a model that can be emulated throughout the world.
Broadcast In: English Duration: 0:26:47