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Maioro Main Image

Image description

Maioro wears a basketball jersey and hoodie. The background features a broken chain and different textures ripped up. Design: Becki Moss

Maioro Barton's basketball chair is like a 'new world'

Becki Moss
By Becki Moss

Maioro Barton (Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Wai) lives and works in Kemureti (Cambridge) where he grew up. He’s been a wheelchair user his whole life and now works helping others learn to use manual wheelchairs.

  • Custom Club is a six-part video series about mobility aids and the liberation they represent, produced by Becki Moss and created in partnership with Independent Living.

  • Read the the transcript of the video of Maioro below.

    [Becki: When did you two meet?]

    Maioro: My first ever wheelchair I got when I was two years old. I've had this wheelchair since 2016.

    So my basketball chair has got two wheels at the front, two wheels on the side and then one wheel at the back.

    That's an anti-tip wheel that stops me from falling back and that wheelchair doesn't have any brakes.

    As soon as I jumped in it, it was just, it was like a new world because I could spin around, go real fast. A lot faster than this one.

    [Becki: What’s the greatest adventure you’ve been on together?]

    Maioro: When the New Zealand Sevens came to Hamilton and that's a real big, dress up party. I wanted to go to that because I love going to events, and I wanted to incorporate my wheelchair as part of a costume. So I grew a moustache and bought off Temu a Mario outfit.

    And I made my wheelchair up as a cart, it was so awesome. Like, I felt as though it broke down so many communication barriers. Everyone was coming up and saying hello, asking me questions and just wanting photos.

    [Becki: What freedom or liberation has this given you?] 

    Maioro: My wheelchair has not disabled me. It has enabled me to be able to live my life and do everything that everyone can do.

Image description: Maioro is smiling, wearing a blue cap and a grey hoodie with "Still recovering from leg day" printed on it.

  • Maioro 1

Image description: Wheelchair basketball players in action on a court. Two players in front, one wearing a red and yellow jersey, the other in black and blue, smile at each other. 

  • Maioro 2

Image description: Maioro is a wheelchair basketball player wearing a number 15 jersey and sits on a court. The background shows a gym with other players and activity.

  • Maioro 3
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