Inside the Global Mission: Turning Plastic Engineering into Pathways to Education
In a small family home in Ethiopia, a mother once saw her daughter sit on the floor for over three years, immobile and unable to attend school. Like most families, this family had no access to mobility aids, and the child’s world was limited to a few square feet. When a team came with a lightweight, bright wheelchair, the moment the child sat up and started to propel herself was transcendent, not just for her, but for everyone in the room.
That image encapsulates Wheelchairs of Hope’s mission, an Israeli NGO established in 2013 to address perhaps the most overlooked global inequity: access to affordable mobility for children with disabilities. By creating sturdy, affordable, child-friendly wheelchairs, this organization has provided thousands of children globally with access to education and social inclusion.
Twenty million wheelchairs are needed globally, predominantly in developing countries, with 7 million of them in permanent need for school-age children. For most, a wheelchair is more than a means of mobility; it’s a prerequisite for access to education and community life. But a whopping nine out of ten children with a physical impairment in resource-poor countries will never receive a chance at a primary education.
This lack of access perpetuates a cycle that translates to adulthood: without education, it is next to impossible to get a job, reinforcing poverty and dependency. It is not a medical issue but a social and economic one. Mass market wheelchairs that cost several thousand dollars are out of reach. What is required are scalable, affordable innovations that can withstand rough terrain and minimal infrastructure.
The origins of Wheelchairs of Hope trace back to Pablo Kaplan and Chava Rotshtein, both former executives at Keter Plastic, one of Israel’s major industrial firms. After decades in manufacturing, Kaplan began to reflect on how his expertise in plastics could serve a greater purpose. The result was a decision to design a product not for profit, but for dignity, a wheelchair that could change the future of children excluded by circumstance.
Kaplan and Rotshtein joined forces with engineer Erez Giladi and rehabilitation specialist Naomi Gefen, under the guidance of ALYN Hospital in Jerusalem. Together, they reimagined what a child’s wheelchair could be. In 2013, Wheelchairs of Hope was formally founded under SHARP Mentoring Ltd., guided by a principle rooted in Israel’s social philosophy of tikkun olam, the idea of repairing the world through innovation and compassion.
The team’s first challenge was to move away from the clinical image of traditional wheelchairs. Instead of heavy metal frames and institutional colors, they envisioned a product that looked friendly, almost like a toy. By meeting international safety standards and using plastic-based materials, they reduced both weight and cost, enabling them to produce a unit for roughly $100, compared with thousands for conventional designs.
Ziv-Av Engineering engineers and Nekuda DM designers brought the idea to life with 3D-print prototypes and industrial models. The chairs are built for rugged terrain, easy to assemble locally, and require simple maintenance with no special tools. All elements of design were designed with a child’s point of view in mind, from ergonomic seating to bold colors that suggest play over disease. Clinical validation for the project was provided by pediatric rehabilitation professionals at ALYN Hospital, ensuring both safety and comfort.
After finalizing the design, Wheelchairs of Hope began developing a global distribution network linking factories, NGOs, and governments. Its premise is partnership: bulk assembly in collaboration with local plants, shipping arrangements with overseas aid agencies, and terminal assembly in receiving nations.
By collaborating with organizations such as the World Health Organization, UNICEF, USAID, and the International Red Cross, the program has reached children in 28 countries, including Chile, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Zambia, Argentina, and the Palestinian Authority. National ministries for health, hospitals, and volunteer organizations oversee tailoring and distribution across all venues.
Diplomatic partnerships, encouraged by Israeli delegations in countries such as Vietnam and China, have structured the project as a model of realistic humanitarian diplomacy. The ultimate goal remains ambitious: to distribute thousands of wheelchairs over the next decade and to create sustainable, autonomous production lines.
Mobility, for a child with a disability, often arrives as a bridge from isolation to access to opportunity. A wheelchair may enable participation at school rather than at home. Many parents indicate that after a child receives mobility services, caregivers, who are primarily mothers, are released to go back to work or community life.
The work of this organization aligns closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly in quality education, reducing inequalities, and global partnerships. Kaplan most frequently condenses the mission to just one sentence: “The moment you give a wheelchair to a child, you change the life of the whole family.”
In cities as in rural areas, its influence goes beyond the individual. Teachers welcome new pupils, communities witness inclusion becoming real, and a generation of children can envision a future once deemed out of reach. In this way, Wheelchairs of Hope shows us how mobility and learning are so interconnected with human development.
A scientific, diplomatic, and philanthropic partnership network underlies the organization’s core. ALYN Hospital remains the clinical core of the initiative. Its advisory board consists of Nobel laureates Aaron Ciechanover and Richard Roberts, as well as Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor.
Internationally, Wheelchairs of Hope collaborates with the Garrahan Foundation and the National Agency for Disability of Argentina (ANDIS) for countrywide distribution across South America. Several global news outlets, including The Jerusalem Post, BBC World, Infobae, and Global Times, have noted its emphasis on a combination of design, diplomacy, and social outreach.
Coming as it did from a humanitarian initiative based in Israel, it also represented a kind of international outreach that was less about politics as usual and more about practical solidarity.
In the coming years, Wheelchairs of Hope aims to reach 100,000 children over the next seven to ten years. This initiative will continue to seek partnerships with governments, corporations, and foundations that prioritize social inclusion through access design.
Its business structure adopts a social enterprise model, with revenue and donations reinvested in research, production, and dissemination. Kaplan has stated that the vision, to this day, rests on a single overarching principle: mobility as a basis for education and independence. By that measure, it is a technological and humanitarian project, with engineering serving both function and human potential.
Each wheelchair shipped is more than a physical aid; it is a concept of inclusion. Each child sits up, moves about, and learns with a chair, a simple invention that redraws the contours of hope in a world where disability far too often equals invisibility.
In restoring mobility, Wheelchairs of Hope enforces a simple reality: dignity starts with mobility, mobility unlocks the gateway to education and equality. With the words at the core of the initiative’s mission, Including Everyone, the circle of hope continues to expand, child by child.
