Our projects:
Capacity Building - training local staff
In many developing countries, there is a severe lack of expertise in areas such as prosthetics and orthotics (the prescription and fitting of prosthetic limbs and orthopaedic braces).Yet these skills are vital for disabled people such as landmine accident survivors and people affected by polio, cerebral palsy and leprosy.
Building local capacity in prosthetics and orthotics reduces reliance on expatriate expertise and helps to ensure the sustainability of rehabilitation services for disabled people in the developing world.
- We run the Cambodian School of Prosthetics & Orthotics (CSPO), an accredited training centre in Cambodia where people from developing countries study the prescription and fitting of prosthetic limbs and orthopaedic braces. Students from Afghanistan, East Timor, Georgia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines Sri Lanka and Cambodia are currently studying at CSPO.
- In partnership with the Sri Lankan Government and the Nippon Foundation of Japan, we have established a second prosthetics and orthotics training centre in Sri Lanka.
- We have established a partnership project in East Timor, and we are training local prosthetist-orthotists and physiotherapists to take over the running of this project in 7-10 years.
Reducing poverty; promoting equality
The disabled people we work with tell us that their major concern is finding a way out of poverty. Equal opportunities to education and employment must be available so that disabled people can break the cycle of poverty.
- We run community-based rehabilitation (CBR) projects in Cambodia and East Timor, working from grass roots to Government level to enable more disabled children to attend school, and to empower more disabled adults to live self-sufficient lives as part of the community.
[Photo: CBR worker Lim Eng with a client who used a small business grant to purchase a sewing machine and gain self-employment.]
Increasing mobility
Improving people’s mobility enables them to take the first steps towards self-sufficiency.
- In Cambodia,we have established 3 rehabilitation centres where local staff make and fit prosthetic limbs and orthopaedic braces and provide wheelchairs and physiotherapy. The majority of clients are people affected by polio, landmine/UXO accidents, cerebral palsy and club foot.
- A new rehabilitation centre has recently been opened as part of our partnership project in East Timor. Clients include many victims of conflict and people affected by leprosy.
[Photo © Wendell Phillips/CIDA]