In 2024, we made history. We achieved many significant firsts, in countries affected by conflict, poverty and lack of infrastructure. Together with our partners and funders, our dedicated team made a positive, sustainable impact on the lives of people with disabilities who need prosthetic and orthotic devices.
In 2024 we delivered our ISPO accredited Prosthetics & Orthotics training programs to 182 students from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ghana, Iraq, Rwanda, Syria, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Ukraine and Yemen. We trained technicians, clinicians and teachers who are the future leaders in P&O.
We took our SCOPes (Specialized Courses in Orthotics and Prosthetics) to 60 students from Hong Kong, India, Iran, Kenya, Myanmar, Tanzania and Uganda to build their skills in specific areas such as spinal orthotics and diabetic foot.
We deliver our Bachelor’s degree program with our academic partner, Mahidol University, Sirindhorn School for Prosthetics and Orthotics in Thailand. We designed this program as a Train the Trainer program to build local capacity in the teaching of prosthetics and orthotics.
We are celebrating a successful finish of our Bachelor’s program in Afghanistan. This is our second cohort in the country to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Prosthetics and Orthotics and the ISPO Prosthetist/Orthotist level qualification at the same time. In partnership with ICRC, we have now trained 20 Prosthetist/Orthotists – the only professionals trained to this level in the country. 10 out of the 20 graduates are prosthetics and orthotics users themselves. Our graduates are trailblazers and leaders of the profession in their country helping to develop the P&O field, training their peers and providing rehabilitation services for patients with complex needs.
We achieved a major milestone in Iraq by graduating the first generation of Bachelor’s degree students at the newly established P&O program at Erbil Polytechnic University. We have invested our knowledge and expertise to develop the program and build local capacity, to enable the university to take over delivery of training after the graduation of the first two generations of students. The program achieved accreditation from the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, making it the only internationally recognized P&O educational program in the country – and the region. The second generation of students will graduate in 2026 when EPU will be ready to take over the full delivery of the program.
As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, more people are disabled by landmines, bombs and bullets every day. There is an urgent need to develop solutions for standardized, comprehensive and sustainable education of prosthetists and orthotists. We have been working with institutions in Ukraine since 2017, building capacity to serve the needs of the growing number of people with disabilities.
This year, we completed our first ISPO accredited formal P&O Technician training for 22 students in 11 cities across Ukraine. This was the first program we developed for newcomers to P&O, supported by Momentum Wheels for Humanity. As the program has acquired international accreditation, it can and will be replicated wherever it is needed. The course materials are currently in English and Ukrainian, and we are planning translations into other languages.
Training Associate Prosthetist/Orthotists is an important step in both capacity building and increasing the quality and quantity of rehabilitation services for people with disabilities. Associate Prosthetist/Orthotists are clinicians and they also train Technicians (non-clinicians) to make prosthetic and orthotic devices. Students must achieve Associate level before they can progress to our Bachelor’s degree course.
We reached a milestone in our partnership project in Sierra Leone, where we partnered in the launch of the first ever ISPO accredited Associate-level P&O education in the country. To prepare the first cohort of students, we designed a special Level 0 introductory course. 16 students completed this course and 10 were selected to continue their studies in the Associate Prosthetist/Orthotists program. The program was kicked off with an inspiring White Coat Ceremony in November. We are currently fundraising to rollout a Technician course for the other 6 students.
In 2024, we continued our work with ICRC in Syria, training Associate-level clinicians. Here, as in many conflict-affected countries, we have adapted our delivery timeline to accommodate the circumstances in the country. Our clinical hands-on training is currently delayed, for security reasons. With our partner ICRC, we are looking into the options to either further postpone this training or organize it fully online, applying our online method of delivering clinical training that we developed as response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to hold the final module and exams for our 12 students in 2025.
The photo shows training in Upper Limb Prosthetics held 2023.
In China, we are delivering an Associate Prosthetist/Orthotist program. This is the first time we are delivering Associate-level training in Mandarin, with translations provided by our project partner China Rehabilitation Research Center (CRRC). We launched the online theoretical teaching and will deliver clinical hands-on workshops in February 2025.
This year, we delivered our SCOPe courses in Lower Limb Prosthetics and Spinal Orthotics in India, Iran and Myanmar for ICRC; and in Hong Kong for the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).
In addition to our regular SCOPe programs, we designed and delivered a special program in lower limb prosthetic based on our SCOPe model and delivered it in the East African Region. The aim of this program was to train capacities in proper application of cost effective highly functional Circleg components. 20 students from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda completed the training at AIC-Cure International Hospital, Kenya. Circleg will use this program to train others in future. The project was funded by Else Kröner Fresenius Stiftung from Germany.
In addition to the partnership on our Bachelor’s degree program, we exchange educational capacities with Sirindhorn School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (SSPO) of Mahidol University. As part of our collaboration this year, the colleagues from SSPO have joined us as lecturers in Hong Kong (shown on the photo) and in our project in Iraq. In addition, SSPO colleagues joined our team of examiners at the final exams in Afghanistan.
We are trainers and educators – but now and again, we become the students! In October, our team received training in the use of translation tools.
We deliver our educational programs in so many different countries around the world, and we always aim to teach in the local language. In addition to English, which is our standard language of instruction, we have translated our programs into Arabic, Bosnian (Serbian, Croatian), French, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian.
However, translating millions of words of educational materials brings many challenges. It significantly increases our project costs and timelines. In our search for a solution, we were lucky to meet Professor Federico Federici from University College London, an expert in Intercultural Crisis Communication, who has helped us find a better way to make our translation process faster, better organized and more cost effective.
This collaboration connected us with Wordfast, a leading provider of platform-independent translation memory software. They have provided us with Wordfast Anywhere, their innovative cloud-based translation memory tool, for free.
We are now translating 3.5 million words of educational materials for our projects in Ukraine.
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