Motivation Australia recognises that a lack of in-country skills in wheelchair service delivery is a major challenge for wheelchair provision in many low income countries.

We provide competency based training in wheelchair service delivery through short courses, designed specifically to meet the learning needs of staff and volunteers from our local partner organisations.

We are currently working with the World Health Organisation on the development of a global training package aimed at teaching local staff the skills they need to provide wheelchairs and look forward to using this resource in our work in the future.

The WHO training package will consist of three modules: basic and intermediate level for clinical and technical staff and wheelchair provision for service managers. The training package is the next step after the 2008 publication of the WHO guidelines on the provision of manual wheelchairs in less resourced settings. The basic level module was piloted in India in June 2010, and in the Solomon Islands in July 2010. The pilot in the Solomon Islands was delivered by a Motivation Australia trainer and Motivation Australia's local partners the Community Based Rehabilitation Unit. Drafting of the intermediate module is underway for pilots next year.

For more information about our training programmes or the WHO Training Package, contact us.