11 May 2023
Legs4Africa – working to get people back on their feet
Legs4Africa is a Bristol based charity and since its inception in 2014 we have grown in every way but our core focus has remained the same – to help as many people with limb difference in sub-Saharan Africa to have access to an affordable prosthetic leg. From an initial one leg sourced for a friend in the Gambia we aim to have reused over 14,000 legs by the end of 2022.
Locating and collecting all those legs is a mammoth task and involves the goodwill of hundreds of people across the world such as individuals here in the UK as well as Canada, America, Australia and Europe whose legs are taking up valuable space under the bed or in a wardrobe. We’ve also set up partnerships with clinics and hospitals where the ‘left behind’ legs accumulate til space is needed and the legs are packed off to our tiny warehouse in Bristol where they are broken down into their recyclable parts before being sent to carefully selected mobility centres in Africa.
We’ve built strong relationships with the hospitals and clinics we service and work closely with them – investing in training future prosthetists (particularly women) as well as supporting the formation of self governing community groups and amputee football teams.
To enable someone to go back to school, to work again, support their family and just to be able to dance again is at the heart of what Legs4Africa strives to achieve.
So, in a nutshell, that’s what Legs4Africa does. See what else we do on our website: www.legs4africa.org or get in touch, we’d love to hear from you: hello@legs4africa.org
Blog kindly contributed by Legs4Africa
Originally posted on November 10th 2022
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