This small photo essay provides a snapshot of PROJIMO at Ajoya in 1990. Featuring Martin Reyes, Mari Picos, Ralf Hotchkiss, Martin Peres, and Manuelito Jesus. Excerpted from "A Village of Second Chances," San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Punch, July 1, 1990, by Lonny Shavelson.
Table of Contents
A Village of Second Chances: In the Backwaters of Mexico, Disabled People are Living Lives of Substance
Lonny Shavelson
San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Punch. July 1, 1990.
People with disabilities help each other move around the village.
The tiny and remove village of Ajoya, Mexico, is at the cutting edge of rehabilitation for disabled people in developing countries.
Ajoya is a poor and dusty town in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains. It’s the last place you’d expect to walk the rough path to the river and be joined by people on crutches, kids limping along in casts, adults strolling on artificial legs.
It’s tempting to say that Ajoya’s connections with Stanford Univesrity and San Francisco’s Shriner’s Hospital explain how this happened. But the truth is that the people of Ajoya led the way, while the U.S. organizations watched and learned.
Paralyzed by a gunshot wound at a high-school dance, Martin Peres is now in charge of the wheelchari shop at Ajoya.
Marin Reyes, a village health worker, cares for the friction wounds on the back of a paralyzed man.
At dusk, the playground fills with people dacing on their feet or in wheelchairs—a carnival gone a bit mad in the fine tradition of the Mexican surrealists.
8-year-old Manuelito Jesus' legs were twisted by polio. Here, straightening begins by a series of plaster casts.
A village health worker does physical therapy with an elderly man paralyzed by a stroke.
Manuelito Jesus walks with crutches.
Rehabilitation coordinator Mari Picos (in wheelchair) teaches Manuelito's mother the physical therapy that will enable him to walk.
Village health workers bathe a man paralyzed by a stroke.
Marin Peres working in the Ajoya wheelchair shop.
Ralf Hotchkiss, a wheelchair rider and engineer, teaches wheelchair making in the Ajoya workshop.
Publication Information
Excerpted from “A Village of Second Chances,” San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday Punch, July 1, 1990, by Lonny Shavelson
