Cross-Border Collaboration Provides Low-Cost Wheelchairs and Prosthetic Limbs Monica Ortiz Uribe - NPR.org
go to original July 9, 2017

Political tension between the United States and Mexico is making headlines with talk of disrupting longstanding trade deals and constructing a border wall.

And then there's the story of Antonio Garcia.

A mechanic from southern Sonora, he had been limping around on crutches for three years. His right leg was amputated below the knee after a motorcycle accident and buying a prosthetic leg was beyond his financial reach.

But he got the prosthesis just this January from a nonprofit that's a collaboration between Mexico and the U.S. It's called ARSOBO and it's working to transform the lives of low-income Mexicans with disabilities. The organization, whose name is an acronym that stands for Arizona/Sonora border, provides affordable prosthetics, specialized wheelchairs and hearing aids.

... ARSOBO provides disabled people who were once isolated, depressed or begging on the streets the possibility of getting a job or going to school. Their signature product is an all-terrain wheelchair, originally developed by a nonprofit in California, that can navigate uneven sidewalks and rough roads.

Since 2012 ARSOBO has provided 295 wheelchairs (about a third of them to children with cerebral palsy), 203 prosthetic limbs and 530 hearing aids.

Read the rest at NPR.org

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