| HN-ACD |
|
|
| Handicap National – Action for Children with Disabilities (HN-ACD), Ethiopia |
|
 |
|
| Inside HN-ACD’s temporary workshop. Amit, Mobility India’s technician working on a calliper during his May 2007 visit |
|
|
 |
|
| Senayet tries out her light weight plastic callipers for the first time under the guidance of Tigist, a rehabilitation therapist |
| |
 |
|
| PFKAFO users |
|
|
HN-ACD has worked to establish Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programmes to reach disabled children, especially girl children, to promote early intervention and social inclusion through support networks for parents of disabled children and their families.
HN-ACD started in Woreda (district) 22 of Addis Ababa in 1999 by identifying all disabled children. They then recruited and trained community volunteers to work with parents to provide home based rehabilitation therapy while at the same time encouraging children to go to school. HN-ACD’s work has expanded to other parts of Addis Ababa and to Sebeta, Debrezeit and Gonder.
As the CBR programme grew so did their need to set up a rehabilitation facility to cater for the needs of disabled children and they were in urgent need of professionally trained rehabilitation staff.
DDP’s partnership with HN-ACD began by supporting their training needs. We funded the training of 2 rehabilitation therapists and 3 orthotic technicians at MIRRTC, India. At the same time we decided together with MI and HN-ACD to introduce the PFKAFO calliper technology in a trial project in Ethiopia. We had learnt about the numbers of polio affected children and that most of the children were still using heavy booted metal ones. For the trials it was necessary to have a small HN-ACD technical team in place to do the preparatory work identifying and assessing the children and then to carry out the post trials follow up. The HN-ACD trainees had already been exposed to PFKAFO technology during their training at MI. The orthotic trainees in particular had been trained to assemble and fit callipers made with PFKAFO components.
The establishment of HN-ACD’s rehabilitation workshop and therapy centre is currently underway. DDP is supporting the workshop set up and has facilitated technical support from Mobility India to help with workshop design and effective systems to deliver an orthotics and rehabilitation therapy service. |
| |
|
| |
| Rehabilitation workshop opens in Addis Ababa |
| |
 |
|
| Soikat, a senior technician from Mobility India doing a quality check on the calliper and fitting done for Khatijah who is affected by polio in both legs |
|
|
 |
|
| HN-ACD team putting the final touches to a pair of callipers |
| |
 |
|
| Rakiq and Senayet-both affected by polio and now using light weight plastic callipers supplied by HN-ACD's workshop and happy with the results |
| |
| |
|
|
|
A year ago HN-ACD’s rehabilitation workshop was a shack with corrugated zinc walls and roofs hastily set up in the compound where their new building was being constructed.
In May 2008, a ground floor room in their yet unfinished building has become a fully operational workshop. The large adjacent room has been refurbished for assessment, physiotherapy and gait training. HN-ACD’s field workers are helping hundreds of disabled children, young people and their families in different parts of Addis Ababa, in Debrezeit and in Gondar in community based rehabilitation programmes. They can now access the new workshop for mobility aids and appliances and physical therapy.
The need for the workshop grew out of our work with HN-ACD over the past 3 years. In preparation for this and in support for their community based field teams we helped to train 5 people in rehabilitation therapy and in orthotics. Mobility India was involved throughout to provide hands on technical advice in Ethiopia and training at their Bangalore based centre.
HN-ACD’s orthotics service from the workshop will provide callipers for anyone who can use callipers made from the prefabricated plastic components. The team is also providing much needed repairs and maintenance services. Children and young people who depend on callipers for their mobility and for those who are growing the workshop is meeting a life time need. It is also important to have a permanent and reliable place to go to for help when there is a sudden breakage or a change in the fitting.
The workshop has the capacity for additional machinery and facilities (such as oven, plaster modification, etc) so that callipers can also be made using conventional methods for those who cannot use the prefabricated components. The other potential is for making artificial limbs and this is a long term goal for HN-ACD and which requires a greater investment in training so that the team is equipped with these skills.
105 children and young people have already registered for the light weight plastic callipers and many more people come to the centre for rehabilitation therapy and other services as well as for advice. Many of the young people and children had been part of the 2005 PFKAFO trials project when the prefabricated component technology was introduced.
Partners Address >> |
|
|
|
