Mel West: UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities

By technologists

Maker of the Mobility Cart since 1994.
Who will you remember on December 3?
Give the Gift of Mobility, Dignity, and Opportunity!
1,604 Mobility Carts built in 2018

As we approach the UN’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities I do not try to think of the affected persons in terms of the great numbers who must live and suffer with a physical problem they did not cause. The multiplied millions are too much around which I can wrap my heart. I must think of those sisters and brothers, one by one, going back to my childhood. I cannot help millions, but I can give assistance to one, and then one more, and another.

2018 Theme: Empowering persons with disabilities and ensuring inclusiveness and equality

Together you and I can help the millions. On Dec. 3 I will remember:

*** Tony, the first person I remember having seen with a disability. He lived in my hometown, with his mother. Tony’s body was well formed except that he had no arms, just two hands attached at the shoulders. He was a full citizen of Golden City, MO, given odd jobs that he could do. He was high school educated, and could lean over and write with his hand. I recall no one teasing him. He was Tony, one of us, who was short-changed on arms.

*** Bimincio was one of 12 Mobility Worldwide cart recipients who came as a group, in Nicaragua, to thank us for the wheelchairs we had sent. He had lost both legs at the crotch, and had for years languished in bed. Now, with his gift of mobility, he was a new and outgoing person. He has had to wear a colostomy bag all those many years. I was so impressed by his positive spirit. Barbara and I have picked up most of the regular cost for his medical supplies. Bimincio and I correspond several times a year.

*** If my memory holds at all I will never forget that rural school in Malawi. It was in open country, and just a roof of grass. Desks were big cubes of dried earth. The school had one chalkboard, but no chalk. Only one tattered book was in the entire school.

There were 80 students, with shining eyes?and broad smiles. The teacher taught by rote -“C-A-T spells cat.” and 80 voices came back, “C-A-T spells cat.” We wanted a photo, and as they came outside for it they carried a young lady of about 8 years. I have the photo of her sitting on the ground in the center of the group. This was before Mobility Worldwide began, so I had nothing to offer except $25 I could spare from my trip. The teacher promised to try to get her a wheelchair.

*** In Bogota, Colombia, it is a man with no legs who traveled about in the busy traffic of downtown on a big skateboard. He was a town feature, loved, accepted and protected by all. I visited with him each time I went to buy an English newspaper.

December 3 gives us the opportunity to remember and do something to help those less fortunate. Who will you remember?

“There are two kinds of disabled persons – those who concentrate on what they have lost, and those who concentrate on what they have left.”

Mel West, Director Emeritus
DBA Mobility Worldwide MO – Columbia