Anyone know of organizations that send used car seats to developing countries?

panta · Apr 16, 2014

A friend from Cuba and I were discussing how wasteful it is to throw out used car seats as our kids get too big for them, even though they are perfectly good. We talked about how in the developing countries we've been to, no one uses car seats.

Does anyone know of any organizations that send used car seats to families in developing countries? I'm not sure the car seats would work, since the back seat set up might be different in different countries (or, as my friend pointed out for Cuba, often there are no seat belts to begin with). But I wanted to ask anyway, in case this is something that I could donate our used seats to.

Thanks!

safeinthecar · Apr 16, 2014

There aren't any that I'm aware of, and I'm not sure that it would actually make kids in these countries safer since often the the cars do not have working belts and the instructions for use would be in languages the parents can't read. Being loose in the car would probably actually be safer than being loose and having extra weight strapped to their back adding force to any impacts.

CarSafetyGuy · Apr 18, 2014

I'm currently advocating to make higher rear-facing seats available in the US, but I'm not aware of any organizations like that you describe. I do agree that it's incredibly wasteful to throw away good seats (and so many other things that could be used by less fortunate folks). Perhaps I'll see if I can get in touch with some people to look into this.

featherhead · Apr 18, 2014

I don't know if it's such a great idea. People would likely think it's a great way to get rid of crashed or expired seats. And then there is the language thing like SITC Saadi.

ketchupqueen · Apr 18, 2014

There is at least one charity that takes them to Mexico. Unfortunately, they accept expired and unknown history seats, and they don't provide instruction on their proper use. I'm of the opinion that in this case it's not necessarily ”better than nothing” and there was a big disagreement on Facebook about it at one point.

Kac · Apr 18, 2014

There are a lot of children in our country who could use a car seat too, not that I am against helping those in other countries. There are just different standards of safety. Think about it: people in developing countries don't know if and when they'll be getting their next meal, so putting their child in a car seat to keep them safe may not even be on their radar.

Anyone know of organizations that send used car seats to developing countries?

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