German town installs LEGO wheelchair ramps

In the town of Hanau, Germany, a resident is bringing colour to everyday life by building LEGO wheelchair ramps.

Rita Ebel, who lives in Hanau, Germany, has the nickname of ‘LEGO Grandma’, RTE reports. She has been in a wheelchair for 25 years and came up with the idea to solve the problem of when there was not a wheelchair ramp available.

Seeing a picture in a journal of a wheelchair user going over a LEGO ramp, she worked with the town’s ‘People in Hanau’ initiative to build LEGO wheelchair ramps. There are now 12 installed in the town.

“Nobody just walks past a LEGO ramp without taking a look,” she told RTE. “Whether it’s children who try to get the bricks out or adults who take out their mobile phones to take pictures. And that’s exactly it. Simply to just try and raise people’s awareness a bit. To make them think, if I was in a wheelchair or was at the point where I needed a Zimmer frame, well then I would start having problems getting in certain places.”

Her reason for using LEGO bricks rather than wood or aluminium is that the colourful blocks make people stop and spread the message she seeks to convey. So that it can spread further that her hometown, Rita has made instructions for the ramps that people can use to construct their own.

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