Through this process the Rotary links are being extended throughout Southern Africa. In 1999 ten Rushmoor Rotarians and their wives made another visit to SA and were able to present chairs to needy disabled people in rural areas near the historic towns of Rorke s Drift and Ladysmith. The items collected are obsolete, redundant or scrapped by various Health Authorities and Red Cross loan centres. Some of those classified as obsolete are, in fact, unused and are scrapped simply because a newer model has been developed. Liability is crucial, as are labour cost and parts availability, which all lead to premature scrapping, .
Modern life revolves around the car and chairs unable to be folded are no longer desirable.
In many wheelchair units, there is a resistance to providing the scrapped chairs as the rules insist that they are physically destroyed. Two Red Cross County Headquarters are now using the Freewheeling project to support their fundraising for new chairs. In the UK, many Clubs have expressed interest and several are now full partners in the project. These include Clubs in Hornchurch, Barnsley, Basingstoke, Farnborough and Warrington. In Africa, the list of Rotary Clubs participating in the project is very large indeed.