MERU (The Medical Engineering Resource Unit) is a charity working with disabled children. MERU design and develop custom-made equipment for individual children’s special needs where no commercial alternative exists.

BWCF are helping to fund MERU’s Interface Centre over three years. The Centre gives disabled children and young people control through tangible, innovative solutions. Working together with the young person’s medical and educational team they design and manufacture switches, joysticks, mice, keyboards and other interface devices. These control devices often bring about a child’s first opportunity to independently communicate, learn and be mobile through the use of computers, communication aids and wheelchairs.

One example of this is MERU’s e-bug – the only powered wheel chair of its kind in the UK for toddlers. The e-bug design is adapted for each child so that the seating is right for them and they have controls that they can use.