For Julie-Marie Chibekete, a documentary filmmaker from Malawi who uses a wheelchair, setting up a shot required more than just a good eye.
“She depended on others to set up shots to do her filmmaking,” says Jody Santos, associate teaching professor at Northeastern University and founding executive director of the Disability Justice Project, a nonprofit media organization that makes filmmaking more accessible for disabled filmmakers in developing countries.
But Chibekete, a fellow with the Disability Justice Project, is no longer dependent, thanks to students in the Northeastern’s Enabling Engineering club who designed a new durable, low-cost wheelchair camera mount.
“It brings independence,” Chibekete says. “It brings a smile.”
