Founder Matt Pepe witnessed the real-world tragic impact of disabilities first hand while living in on and off in Bolivia for four years from 2009 until 2018. Volunteering in a prosthetic hospital, he observed that amputees in particular were highly discriminated against and received little support from foreign NGOs nor the Bolivian government. For that reason Matt felt the compelling urge to act to help to mitigate this problem. First he founded a prothetic clinic in La Paz Bolivia called Centro de Miembros Artificiales. The clinic was dedicated to making prothetic feet and legs and worked with each patient to ensure their fit and help the patients learn to walk again. Later, in 2015, he created the US 501(c)3 non-profit Bolivians Without Disabilities (BWD). In 2017 Matt and BWD started to work with CreoTec in La Paz Bolivia to build prosthetic hands and arms via 3D printing technology. As of the end of 2021, this work continues.
Living with a disability in Bolivia is not easy, especially if you are poor. Very few buildings and streets are accessible by wheelchair. According to Lucio Álvarez, an expert on disabilities at the medical faculty of La Paz’s public university, even this is not the greatest cause for concern.
Social stigma is the most serious concern. People suffer serious discrimination. Even teachers, police officers and doctors are not trained in how to deal with the disabled.
According to the “World Report on Disabilities” (WRD), people with disabilities are more much likely to be unemployed than non-disabled people. People with disabilities often do not receive needed health care. Half of the disabled cannot afford health care. People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to find health-care providers’ skills inadequate; nearly three times more likely to be denied health care; and four times more likely to report being treated badly than non-disabled people. Children with disabilities are less likely to attend school than non-disabled children. Education completion gaps are found across all age groups in all settings, with the pattern more pronounced in poorer countries. Even in countries where most non-disabled children go to school, many children with disabilities do not go to school. For example, in Bolivia about 98% of non-disabled children go to school, but under 40% of disabled children attend school.
For those reasons Matt and Bolivians Without disAbilities raise and provide funding to Bolivian organizations that attempt to eliminate and/or alleviate disabilities in Bolivia. We will offer funding to non-profit Bolivian prosthetic organizations that provide prosthesis to low-income Bolivian amputees. We will also promote awareness in the United States of Bolivian disabilities, so that other interested organizations may provide their support, either in concert with our organization or on their own. We will also promote the transfer of technologies to Bolivia, such as locally manufacturable prosthetic components, hearing aids and batteries, the use of Adaptive Furniture Technology for babies and young children, and more. We will also attempt to coordinate the delivery of wheelchairs from international non-profits who donate wheelchairs to local partners.
Find out how you can donate to make a difference in the lives of disabled Bolivians.
