Jirasuradej, Lawan. Mama Wahunzi. Distributed by Women Make Movies, 462 Broadway #500. New York, NY: 10013. Color, 2001. 57 Minutes.

Reviewed by Jennifer L. Croissant, University of Arizona

This documentary of three African women, Sharifa, Fatuma, and Peninah, and their participation in a project to manufacture their own wheelchairs has received several awards in international film competitions and from disability rights organizations. It is uplifting without romanticizing the women and their accomplishments, and is emotionally compelling. However, the film does require a lot of work on the part of viewers.

The film's title, Mama Wahunzi, which means "woman blacksmiths" in Swahili, is not explained clearly in the film at any point. A few text-overs provide some names and rudimentary explanations. The film is not narrated, which allows the participants' voices to remain central to the work. However, if one does not already know about the prevalence of polio in Eastern Africa, about Ralf Hotchkiss and Whirlwind Wheelchair International, or about the social and physical infrastructures of Kenya and Uganda, much of the power of the film is attenuated.

A vignette of Sharifa, who is denied taxi service at the airport, and often charged double or triple fare for her non-foldable wheelchair, opens the film. Then the second woman, Fatuma, explains that she was educated as a social worker and is capable with computers, yet must do handicrafts and weaving for support because she is discriminated against by employers as soon as they see her in her wheelchair at an interview. Finally, Peninah was on her way to college but then mysteriously stricken with an illness, leaving her a paraplegic wheelchair user and selling souvenirs for a living. The work maintains a parallel narrative tracing each women's involvement with Whirlwind Women (recently reorganized to Women Pushing Forward), which provided basic metalworking training in preparation for participation in a wheelchair manufacturing workshop.

The goal of Whirlwind Wheelchairs International is to promote mobility using wheelchairs manufactured locally, provide skill development, and lessen dependency on international suppliers, thus lowering the cost, as well as providing wheelchairs designed for the activities of daily living in specific contexts. For example, the chairs designed are lower to the ground, providing stability for rough terrain, as well as better reach toward the ground. The chairs are also fitted to individuals more easily than mass-produced imported chairs.

Sharifa explains that the new wheelchair changed her life. Its foldability allowed easier access to taxi services and helped her to not get overcharged, although part of her success in that regard might be attributed to a changed attitude toward demanding fair treatment. Peninah goes on to develop the first women-owned wheelchair workshop in Africa, her firm producing 20 chairs per month in addition to the total of 250 chairs indigenously produced annually prior to the project, and Fatuma and Sharifa also eventually go into business producing wheelchairs.

The work that needs to be done to fully contextualize the film is what makes this film an extraordinary resource for teaching about disability, as it touches on many issues of importance to scholarship and activism. The obvious themes are self-determination and empowerment, but the film could also be used to introduce discussions of international development, international health disparities, and concerns about paternalism. The women briefly discuss their children and families: all are mothers, and Peninah underwent involuntary tubal ligation. The larger context of disability and sexuality, the legacy and reality of forced sterilization, and sexism are all potent topics of discussion that emerge from this film. Similarly, urbanization and rural-to-urban transitions, and the intersection of disability, housing, and urban planning are all touched upon. There are approximately 36 curb cuts in the entire city of Nairobi, Kenya, where Peninah lived, and Sharifa returned from the workshop to find new narrow sidewalks and buildings blocking access, so that she had to park her chair at the curb and crawl into her home. In Africa, race figures differently than in the U.S. and the west as a mode of distinction, and while mentioned in passing, that is yet another topic that this film can open up for productive discussion. Finally, for those interested in the technological end of things, this film provides a good entry to discussions about appropriate technology and vernacular or indigenous designs. High-tech might be attractive, but low-tech works and lasts.

African metalworking has an ancient, and specifically mythologically gendered, history, and the film perhaps understates the radical potential for these women learning metalworking. In general, Mama Wahunzi expresses a number of subtle, if important tensions between radical self-determination and neo-liberal agendas of normalization. It is an invaluable resource for a disability studies library, and an unparalleled pedagogical resource.