ATU640 – Agape Mobility Ethiopia with Saba Marcos

Hello, my name is Saba Marcos. I am the founder of Agape Mobility Ethiopia, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the Indata Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 640 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on September 1st, 2023. On today’s show, we are very excited to welcome Saba Marcos from Agape Mobility Ethiopia to tell us about the great project that they’re running and folks that they’re helping out there. We also have a story about a new AT hub that will be opening up in India as well as bridging apps here with an app worth mentioning. Don’t forget, if you ever do want to reach us, feel free.

Call our listener line at (317) 721-7124 or shoot us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We always love hearing from you, getting your suggestions, your comments, heck, your complaints. We’ll take them all. So go ahead and reach out whenever you get a chance, but for now, let’s go ahead and get on to the show.

Maybe you’re looking for some new podcast to listen to. We’ll make sure to check out our sister podcast, Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ or Assistive Technology frequently asked questions. If you’re super busy and don’t have time to listen to a full podcast, be sure to check out Accessibility Minute, our one minute long podcast that gives you just a little taste of something assistive technology based so that you’re able to get your assistive technology fixed without taking up the whole day. Hosted by Tracy Castillo, this show comes out weekly. Our other show is Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, or ATFAQ. On Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, Brian Norton leads our panel of experts as we try to answer your assistive technology questions. This show does rely on you, so we’re always looking for new questions, comments, or even your answers on Assistive Technology Questions.

So remember, if you’re looking for more Assistive Technology podcasts to check out, you can check out our sister shows, Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ, wherever you get your podcast, now, including Spotify and Amazon Music. Folks coming up this next week on Thursday, September 7th and Friday, September 8th, we’ll be having a two day training for Indata called Assistive Technology and Autism. Now, a lot of our trainings around here are pretty singularly focused on Assistive Technology along with either a certain part of life such as work or school or transition or maybe certain disabilities or certain things to do in the assistive technology space. Well, this time it’s a little bit different. In this two day training will touch on assistive technology and how it can help individuals with autism, but there’s a lot of other really cool stuff coming out of it. So we’re very excited to put on this two day training and just to give you an idea of some of the different things on the agenda.

Of course, we’ll kind of start with welcome an overview and then an overview of autism, a little talk about ableism and a move towards allyship, talk about language processing and AAC. Sensory processing. We’ll also have the folks from Bridging Apps who you’ll hear here in just a little bit with an app worth mentioning also. That’s all just in the first day. Second day I’ll dig a little bit deeper in and we’ll talk about remote supports and other kind of technology that can assist. We’ll talk about applications of social robots and how those can help individuals with autism. There’ll be a parent and provider panel discussion. We’ll look at things from a parent’s perspective, we’ll talk about sexuality and relationships, and then finally end it all up with connecting to resources. So if you are an individual with autism, a family member of someone with autism, just interested in assistive technology and autism, interested in assistive technology or any of those things, make sure to head over to eastersealstech.com and sign up for this two day training. Now, you can actually click on the two days separately because you will have to register for both.

You can do this in person or online. CEUs are available, but remember, you do have to register for each one independently. Now, you can always just register for day one or day two, but if you get there and click on them, you can see the full on agenda and decide for yourself whether you’d like to attend one or both, and whether you’d like to attend in person or online. So again, we’ll put that link down in the show notes, but please, if you have the time and the interest, next Thursday and Friday, September 7th and eighth of 2023, please join us for Assistive Technology and Autism presented by the Indata Project. Folks, our first story today comes to us from the Times of India and it’s titled, Government Plans Push to Help India become Hub of Assistive Tech for Disabled. It’s written by Ambika Pandit and talks about a new push in India.

Now, if you listened to the show enough, I know over the years I’ve talked to quite a few folks from quite a few different kind of areas of the world, but there’s a decent amount of the time that I’m talking to someone from India, someone who’s just kind of used the skills that they’ve learned in technology to create something new, some new process, some new thing to help individuals with disabilities work, go to school or just kind of participate in this beautiful thing we all share called life a little bit more. And this story is about the government there in India actually trying to kind of push in order to make India kind of the hub of assistive technology and of new assistive technology devices and startups. It says the purpose of this project is kind of to bridge the existing knowledge gap, broken supply chain and high prices of devices. And it’s a partnership between the electronic and IT ministries, software technology parks of India and the National Center for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People.

And their hope is to establish this assistive technology hub and Hope India emerges a global hub for AT Devices, actually says an on-ground rollout for this is actually expected next year and it will have a centralized virtual hub and three physical hubs that’ll be called Centers for Excellence and Entrepreneurship at different institutions. It says together they’re hoping to support 150 startups over a period of five years. So really think about that. That’s 150 startups with new devices, new ideas, new companies with new ways to maybe help individuals with disabilities be able to participate in work, life, play, school and other things. It’s also great because if you’ve ever noticed anything, if we ever do get folks on here, especially as they talk and as they work together, they get to share ideas, they get to kind of learn from each other’s successes and failures, and you may have two or three even working on the same kind of thing that can then work together and be able to really get exactly what they need and can really kind of help.

I’ll put a link to the story over in the show notes so you can read about it. It says a lot about the statistics from the W H O Global report on AT and a lot of other things that just kind talk about the number of individuals with disabilities, the folks that need assistive technology, but I mean it really kind of just talks about the high cost, the lack of financing, the lack of availability, the lack of awareness, the lack of trained personnel for servicing such things and everything else that really just leads to folks not having the access to assistive technology that is actually needed. So I know we talk about it a little bit on here, but there always seems to be a lot of news coming out of India when it relates to assistive technology and supporting individuals with disabilities.

I personally have never been to India, but as I said, I’ve talked to quite a few folks on this show over the years, and I’ve always been amazed. Sometimes I’m talking to folks that are so much younger than me and just the amazing things that they’ve already pulled off. Usually they’re already in kind of some kind of computer programming, software coding, some other kind of school. They interact with someone with a disability and kind of learn about the barriers they have. They’re like, oh, I can make something. Not to give specific examples, but listeners to the show have probably heard some of those interviews before. So again, I’ll put a link to this over in the show notes, but it’ll be really exciting to kind of see this all come to fruition and hopefully here next year, maybe whenever this does drop and kind of come out, hopefully we can get somebody on to talk to us a little bit more about it. Next up on the show, please join me in welcoming back Amy Berry from Bridging Apps with An App Worth Mentioning.

This is Amy Berry with Bridging Apps, and this is an app worth mentioning. This week’s featured app is called Can Plan. Can Plan by the University of Victoria makes task analysis simple, fun and engaging. This app allows parents, therapists, and teachers to easily and visually break down and schedule tasks. The app promotes independence and builds confidence by helping people with cognitive challenges complete tasks successfully. Virtually any activity can be broken into a sequence of easy to follow steps illustrated by photos and reinforced with optional text and audio. Scheduling and reminder features ensure each tasks get done on time. For any given task, a user initially goes through the activity with a support person or family member. Together they take photos of each step in the task, adding text or audio as needed. The task is then filed under a customizable set of categories, which would include areas such as food prep, household chores, shopping, transportation, exercise, workplace tasks, and so on.

This app is a great benefit to individuals with special needs. In particular, the app is an excellent choice for teaching and scheduling tasks to those with autism, head injury, ADHD and learning disability. Can Plan is currently available for iOS devices and is free to download with optional in-app purchases. For more information on this app and others like it, visit bridgingapps.org.

Access to technology and mobility devices greatly varies around the globe. Because of this, some individuals have little to no access to accommodations that may seem kind of commonplace to many others. Well, our guest today is Saba Marcos and she’s here to tell us about Agape Mobility Ethiopia and how they’re bringing life-changing mobility devices to individuals who can really benefit from them. Sabra, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. Thank you inviting me.

Yeah. I know Nicole who does kind of our scheduling, got to meet you I think, and find out some about this and just we had to have you on kind of after that. But before we get really into talking about Agape Mobility Ethiopia, can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your background?

Sure. My name is Saba Marcos, so I’m born in Ethiopia and I came here in US when I was 14 and then United States, and I finished high school here and went to college here, and I live in Washington DC and moved here in Fort Wayne, Indiana nine years ago, almost nine and 10 years ago. And I have four kids. I have three boys and one girl, and all of them is college and finished college, and they live their own life. And so now I’m living in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Very nice. And I think let’s just start at the beginning with Agape Mobility Ethiopia. Can you just kind start us off to tell us when it was started and why?

Yes. Yeah. So before I came to United States, when I was a child, I was disabled myself. I have a half polio, one of my right leg, and I was diagnosed with polio. So my mom and my father have a good life, and so they took me to different doctors, like physiotherapist and a lot of treatment. I used to crawl on the floor and I used to use a wheelchair and use walkers. So because of that, my family invest a lot of time and money and I was able to walk. So after like I told you, I left home when I was 14 and when I was 25 or 26, I went back home and to visit my family. And I see a lot of people, and especially in the Catholic churches in Ethiopia by the door, people are begging and most of them are polio victim, and a lot of disabled people is begging in the street.

And I saw that and it just remind me when I was little, if I don’t have a good family or supporter, I will be one of them and crawling on the floor. And so that is the vision start. So I start this vision 2019, but before that I help a lot of organizations sending containers. But the 2019, we start 541C. So our real motto or our vision is no more crawling at the floor. So some of my friend here in Fort Wayne, we decide to open this organization. So in the meantime, we collect a lot of wheelchairs and a lot of organization donate wheelchair for us. So so far we distribute almost 3000 wheelchairs within this three years.

Oh, wow. That is a lot. But I’m sure there’s probably still a pretty large need out there. I bet that while helping out a lot of folks probably just barely makes a dent and the folks that can benefit from it. Am I right?

Yes. I went Ethiopia almost five times so far, and we distribute almost 3000 wheelchairs in different regions. Usually, we give this wheelchair, people never receive wheelchair in their life time, so we drive more than 2000 miles to distribute the wheelchair. Yeah.

Wow. And you brought me to my next question maybe what are some of the challenges with the program and really being able to implement it in Ethiopia? I mean I imagine size and some other things, but maybe what are some of the challenges?

Yeah, the challenges is number one is gathering the wheelchairs. Collecting the wheelchairs is one of the challenging. Because we used wheelchairs. And so what we do is we collect the wheelchairs. Here in Fort Wayne we have a workshop. So in the workshop, with volunteers, they try to fix it and make it like a brand new wheelchairs. So one of the challenge we have is collecting wheelchairs and mobility devices. The other thing is we have a little bit challenging shipping. To ship one container of wheelchair, it costs like 10 to $15,000. So we have a challenge of people who sponsor us for shipping this wheelchairs. And the other challenge, the third challenge is getting pediatric wheelchairs. We need a lot of pediatric wheelchairs. As you know, pediatric wheelchairs is a little bit expensive, so we take some used pediatric wheelchairs or the kids who not using the wheelchair no more, they grow out of it. So that’s the main challenge we have now.

Nice. And you brought this up a little bit, but can you tell us a little bit about your team and volunteers both in Ethiopia and back here?

Sure, yeah. Including me, Agape Mobility Ethiopia is run by volunteers. And Fort Wayne Indiana, around that area, we have a lot of volunteers come from churches, some from companies and youth. They come every Saturday and they give their time. We have a very strong volunteers here in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We have almost more than 30 volunteers. And in Ethiopia we have volunteers. Each regions, they help us assembling the wheelchairs and distributing the wheelchair. So Agape Mobility Ethiopia is run by volunteers and we are really believing in volunteers and serving the community.

That’s awesome. When you get those mission based folks in there, sometimes it can really help a lot with those services.

Yes.

Sabra, while we’re talking, could you tell us a little bit about Ethiopia since many of our listeners may not know kind of much about it, maybe what’s the population and are most folks living kind of urban or rural areas, languages, anything like that? I know a lot of folks may not have a whole lot of experience with Ethiopia. I think it’s always important to know a little bit about where you’re doing your good work.

Yes. Ethiopia is located in East Africa, and as you know, all of you as Ethiopian known with historical more than 2000 years ago, we believe Ethiopian found before that. So Ethiopia has a culture similar to Jewish culture. So yeah, it is like 120.3 million people live there. 17% of the people there are disabled and most of them never receive any kind of mobility devices. So Ethiopia has a beautiful city known by coffee and Ethiopian coffee as a lot of people knows about the coffee. So it’s a deep and rich and history. Yeah.

It’s funny, when I was kind of preparing for this, I was trying to think what do I know about Ethiopia? And you mentioned two of them, I was like, archeology and coffee, are the two things that really come to mind when I think of that. But really in just doing a little bit of research, I didn’t realize the size, just how large it is and just how much area it really covers. While we have a little bit of time here, can you tell us maybe a couple of stories about some of the folks who you’ve been able to work with and really be able to bring this mobility to?

Yes, we have many stories to tell, but some of the stories, I just came from Ethiopia like two, three months ago and I was able to go to one of the region in Ethiopia called Arba Minch. And this lady, she’s 83 years old. When I gave her a wheelchair, I asked her, did you have wheelchairs? She said she never have wheelchair in her lifetime, 83 years. That’s very shock me and brings tears to my eye. And it is very, very strange to hear that kind of thing. In America, you never get used to it. Imagine for 83 years never use a wheelchair and she’s crawling on the floor and that is very touch. And I said, oh my goodness, that’s very hard. But the second story is children. There’s a lot of children in Ethiopia, especially if you have special needs kids. They’re abandoned them by the family, they are cursed or they are unwanted.

So a lot of them when I go visit them, their homes, some of them, they never get up from their homes and the skin changed to almost white skin and the bone is very tender. The bone is very sensitive. So sometimes when we pick them up from the bed, you have to be really careful because they never see a sun most of their lifetime. And so when we give them this wheelchair, we give them a hope, looking going outside, sit in the sun and see people is walking around and play with the kids, that’s very, very powerful for them. So there’s a lot of stories I can tell you. I saw one time a little boy is tied with a robe, and they tie him with his bed so he cannot go. It is like animal almost. And it’s a lot of stories I have.

So like I told you, I go to the village, rural areas and people never receive wheelchairs. So you see a lot of stories. And some of them is victim with the war. Ethiopian were facing war like two, three years ago. So most of them are younger generation. So when we give them a wheelchair, they’re happy so they can go school and they can go to the market and do their business or do different things. Yeah, there’s many stories I can’t tell.

Oh, most definitely. I bet you have 3000 separate stories probably with all the folks that you guys have been able to help. If our listeners would want to help out or anything like that. What kind of donations and volunteers do you look for and need?

Yes, especially if you live around Fort Wayne areas and we would like to have volunteers who can help us come to Saturday, sacrifice your time and maintain the wheelchairs, fix the wheelchairs. You need no kind of experience. We have a lot of experts who will come and show you how to do it. So now in our storage we have like 200 wheelchairs to be repaired, so if anybody would like to volunteer in that area, we will be appreciating. And another way of donation is you can go to our website, agapemobilityethiopia.org and you can help us as much as you can, especially with looking for monthly donors. We can start from $5 go to app and they can help us. Because we planning this year, end of this December, we planning to send three containers.

So it’s going be really we appreciating, and one thing I’d mention here is some of the wheelchair, we get it free, but we pay shipment only. And so that will help us. Any support you do will help us to ship the container to Ethiopia and yeah, and another way you can help us, pray for us so the Lord will provide everything. So thank you.

No, thank you. We will definitely put that contact information down in our show notes so that folks can find the website, find out more, and find out different ways that they might be able to help in case they’re not up there at the Fort Wayne area. Hey, if they’re not, that’s not a bad trip. And maybe even learn a little bit about how to work on wheelchairs while you get to help folks out. That’s always a little extra great thing. Well, Sabra, thank you so much for coming on the show today for telling us about this and really and truly just thank you for the great work that you’re able to do for folks, and really just be able to give them something that without your intervention and assistance, they may not have been able to do. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter at Indata Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or INTRA. You can find out more about INTRA at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fought over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the Indata Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the Indata Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time, Bye-bye.