Wheelchairs for Kids

In August, 2009, a shipment of 178 wheelchairs departed our Perth workshop for Arusha Region in Tanzania, the gateway to Mt Kilimajaro and the Serengeti Plains.

Eagerly awaiting their arrival was Sarah Wallis, a volunteer Occupational Therapist from Melbourne who has been a volunteer worker in Arusha for 4 years. Sarah works with the Selian Hospital, on a project assisting kids with flourosis, club feet and burn scar contractures which prevent the kids from walking. The treatment is called osteotonomy whereby the child's bones are broken and reset in plaster so they can walk again, most for the first time.

Sarah's role is to go to the remote villages, finding the kids, getting them in for surgery and managing the after care until they are walking. The shipment of wheelchairs are destined for the kids that Sarah has found and which surgery can't help. Keep up the fantastic work Sarah!