I put together my first wheelchair

This afternoon, there were just five of us (including 4 CSCDC volunteers) who turned up at SPD for the second instalment of the wheelchair repair course, or more correctly as I found out, the Mobility Aids Course. More than half of the folks who had attended the first session a fortnight ago failed to come for today's lesson. :(

Although the turnout was quite dismal, our instructor, Eugene, didn't seem too affected by it. Neither were his co-instructors, Alan and Andy. With less people around, the five of us volunteers were presented with a golden opportunity to learn from the masters about dismantling and assembling wheelchairs on a more personal basis. :) Among the five of us, we managed to strip two discarded wheelchairs right down to the very last nuts and bolts, washed and polished the separate pieces, and then put them back together again. They looked almost as good as new!

The two wheelchairs that we had "restored" today will be sent to Indonesia, together with another batch of "restored" wheelchairs, to augment the equipment in hospitals there, especially those in regions devastated by the tsunami of 26 December 2004.