The past 50 years have seen the lives of over 100,000 people with disabilities — including children, parents, athletes, ex-service people, and those who have retired — transformed by local volunteers of the national charity Remap, who have built equipment to help these individuals lead independent lives.

The charity, which is celebrating its 50^th birthday this summer, now works in 80 local branches across the UK. It counts professional engineers, craftspeople, technicians and health professionals among its army of 6,000 volunteers who have devoted their time and expertise to turning around the lives of individuals affected by disability.

The volunteers carry out a full consultation with each client to understand their specific needs. Using this information they design and build bespoke equipment, or adapt existing equipment, enabling the individual to overcome challenges in undertaking everyday tasks and activities — providing solutions to problems that cannot be answered by commercially available equipment.

Tim, from Waddesdon, Bucks, is a father with paralysed legs who looks after his young twins on his own during the day. Frustrated that he could only take the twins out in his car, rather than to the park or along local footpaths, he bought a bicycle trailer for twins that he intended to tow using his powered wheelchair. However, the trailer was only designed to attach to one side a bicycle. Remap designed and made a special pivoting tow bar to fit it safely to the back of the wheelchair, and away they all went. Further details and video at http://www.remap-southbucks.org.uk/2013/05/15/wheelchair-trailer-attachment-for-twins.

Roger Thorn, who made the trailer attachment, has been a volunteer with Remap South Bucks for five years. He says: “Throughout my engineering career I’ve always enjoyed coming up with new ideas and making things. It’s very uplifting to be able to solve people’s problems and help them to live fuller and more independent lives.”

Adam Rowe, Chief Executive Officer of Remap, commented: “Remap has been transforming lives for 50 years based upon selfless support from our volunteers. Every piece of equipment enables people to try and undertake everyday tasks or help them achieve their ambitions. I look forward to the next generation of volunteers signing up to volunteer with us to continue changing people’s lives.”