Electric powered wheelchair excursions present Colombian metropolis from new angle
MEDELLIN, Colombia (AP) – Wilson Guzmán dropped the use of his legs at age 17 when he was shot in the back again while making an attempt to get better a stolen bicycle in his hometown of Medellin, Colombia.
Two many years later on, he glides as a result of the city’s streets making use of an electrical hand-bike attached to the front of his wheelchair. He not long ago gave a tour of Medellin’s parks to 7 individuals who adopted him down bicycle lanes and up steep hills on equivalent automobiles.
“Every human being who will get on these wheelchairs leaves with a smile,” reported Guzmán. “They also discover what it’s like to be in the sneakers of an individual with a incapacity.”
The wheelchair excursions that Guzman qualified prospects as soon as a week are the most current vacationer attraction in a metropolis that is bit by bit shedding its status for drug violence and has turn out to be one of Colombia’s most frequented locations.
They are organized by MATT – which stands for Mobility, Accessibility, Time and Get the job done – a begin-up started past calendar year that aims to generate work for persons with disabilities.
For the equivalent of $25, both people today who can and can’t stroll can get on the electric powered wheelchairs and take the three-hour tour of the city’s riverside parks, which contains stops at a espresso store and a bar that does beer tasting. The products speed up promptly and can attain speeds of 30 kph (19 mph).
“We imagine this will be a successful proposal in terms of instruction and inclusion,” said enterprise founder Martín Londoño.
The excursions began in Oct and their routes are nonetheless becoming adjusted. Londoño stated he required to give them before this year but had to delay the launch due to the coronavirus pandemic and vacation restrictions imposed by the Colombian federal government, which have been lifted in September.
The hand-cycles, crafted and built with the support of nearby bicycle workshops, are run by rechargeable batteries and latch on to wheelchairs with metallic bars and hooks. The steering and brakes are like those people on a common bicycle, while accelerating only calls for pushing a button on one of the handles.
Londoño, 31, started off to function on the hand-cycles four a long time ago to make improvements to his personal mobility. He misplaced the use of his legs after breaking his spinal chord in a site visitors accident at age 18.
Londoño took inspiration from Batec, a Spanish organization that tends to make electrical hand-bikes and sells them for involving 4,000 and 6,000 euros. He wanted to make a model that was extra very affordable for folks in Colombia, where the minimum amount wage is about $250 a month.
After various attempts, Londoño managed to make a practical hand-bicycle for himself, but his endeavours to offer them for all over $2,000 weren’t effective.
“We understood that most individuals with disabilities in Colombia have quite meager incomes,” said Londoño, who grew up in a rich neighborhood of Medellin and graduated from an global faculty. “They have no employment and quite a few can’t even manage a regular wheelchair.”
Londoño transformed his organization model and established MATT. With his discounts and those people of his enterprise partners, Londoño has created a fleet of 15 hand-cycles. Three of them have been leased to individuals with disabilities who work for a supply provider established up by MATT this yr.
Londoño charges the delivery staff a monthly cost of $90 and suggests they will be permitted to continue to keep the hand-bikes when they have paid out for them.
MATT utilizes the remaining hand-bikes for its wheelchair tour, which is still in its early days and will have to contend in opposition to a lot more popular points of interest, together with excursions of sites associated with drug lord Pablo Escobar, a museum that includes the performs of artist Fernando Botero and a cable car that ascends a steep mountain to a pristine cloud forest.
Londoño states he is attempting to boost his tour on social media even though constructing partnerships with regional journey companies. He goals of having the wheelchair excursions to other towns in Colombia, Latin America and the United States.
“This is one more way to demonstrate how our metropolis is changing” stated Valeria Toro, a Medellin travel agent who would like to record it on choices for vacation corporations abroad. “It’s an working experience that men and women are not very likely to fail to remember following they go again house.”