| Centro Ortopédico Jaipur (COJ) |
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| A rehabilitation programme for amputees and other disabled people in Gaza Province, Mozambique |
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| COJ - Mozambique |
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| COJ - clients |
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| COJ - main office |
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| COJ - service user |
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The Centro Ortopédico Jaipur (COJ) was DDP’s first project in Africa. The long civil war which ended in 1992 and the use of landmines in Mozambique left many amputees and disabled people needing help. In 1995, two provinces still lacked a rehabilitation workshop and service, so together with our local partner, Cruz Vermelha de Mozambique – CVM (Mozambique Red Cross Society) and in consultation with the Mozambican Ministry of Health, we set up a rehabilitation service in a new centre in one of them - Gaza province.
DDP supported the building of the centre from scratch, acquiring and installing equipment and sourcing the materials needed to make such aids as prosthetic limbs and callipers, together with CVM, we recruited staff and organised training for technicians, which included training in India at different rehabilitation centres so that they were exposed to good practice.
Located in Manjacaze district, COJ brought essential rehabilitation services to communities which really needed them. It is the first centre set up in a rural area of Mozambique and the first to be fully managed by a local organisation. People from all over Gaza and neighbouring provinces have benefited from its prosthetic, orthotic and rehabilitation therapy service. As always, while providing these services is a worthwhile end in itself, DDP’s philosophy is that they should not exist in isolation; disabled people’s needs do not end with mobility aids; indeed, often, that is where they start. Therefore, the social support programme we initiated with CVM helped provide economic security for disabled people and their families, be it through providing the means for them to support themselves financially or building a new house.
The formal partnership through COJ has now ended but DDP’s commitment to the centre and its clients continues. We have provided technical support through DDP’s Partner’s Training programme – sponsoring a technician to attend Mobility India’s prosthetics courses in Bangalore - and we support COJ in working with partners in India and elsewhere so that the South to South dialogue started in 1996 continues to this day.
Most recently, COJ and CVM were involved in the Disability Awareness and Development Programme (DADP). CVM’s makes no charges for COJ services provided. It is also that most disabled people simply could not afford to pay but the centre’s survival is dependent on finding funds to pay running costs – salaries, utilities and the like. That’s why DADP provided resources for COJ to construct a guesthouse very close to the centre to provide a continuing income stream – and to provide a much needed service in a fast growing town with only one other place to lodge. Right now, we are working with COJ planning to add an internet café to the guesthouse, which will be the town’s first.
At the same time, DADP continued our commitment to enable COJ’s clients to earn an income by supporting CVM’s programme distributing resources such as cattle and fishing kits that allow disabled people to be more self sufficient as well as to generate a surplus which they can sell.
To date, COJ has provided services for over 5,000 people. It is renowned as a centre of excellence where the quality of aids and appliances is matched by the warm, welcoming and professional attitude of its staff. DDP will continue to respond to their suggestions – even today people are becoming disabled as there remain an unknown and unmapped number of landmines all over Mozambique. |
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