Help Ugandans receive prosthetic upper limbs

The World Action Fund (WAF) is seeking to raise money for individuals with limb differences in Uganda.

WAF has received surveys from 11 hospitals, 2 refugee camps and 4 regions in Uganda, and identified at least 373 patients and an additional 500 to be identified with below-shoulder, below-elbow and below-wrist amputations that have severely impacted their ability to find work, and often have caused them to be alienated from their communities.

THE NEED

Individual causes of missing limbs include:

- Violence (landmines, domestic, gun violence)

- Road traffic incidents

- Industrial accidents

- Congenital defects

- Cancer

- Snake bites

In Northern Uganda, amputation was used as a terror and training tool for ‘child soldiers’ targeted by Joseph Kony’s Lord's Resistance Army, which caused damage for 26 years, mutilated thousands and killed over 100,000 people. Most surviving victims in the region, concentrated in the Gulu district, have gone without prosthetics for their whole lives. The Ministry of Health has partnered with WAF to open a survey camp in the region, providing an opportunity for locals to receive measurements and prosthetics; with your help, they’ll be able to send a full survey team to Gulu in 2025.

THE HOW

While volunteers in the United States and Canada design, print and build custom prosthetics for each patient and ship to Uganda at their own cost, custom prosthetics require comprehensive measurements of individual patients, making up the bulk of the process cost as follows:

In order to identify those in need, WAF spends $1,250 on radio announcements to survey and mobilize patients by region. After WAF travels to each region (patients are often unable to find transport to a central location, so WAF provides travel aid - $6,400), they must hire a technical team of drivers, orthopedic engineers and field mobilizers to survey individual patients. The total cost for the survey operations is $23,170. Additional logistical costs include the cost of hiring a vehicle for 30 days ($2,700), and fuel costs for transport between 16 meeting locations ($1,321).

WAF Uganda plans to visit and survey individuals in all four regions, beginning with Northern Uganda (4 subregions, 37 districts). They have visited the following districts: Northern Uganda, West Nile subregion (Arua, Koboko, Maracha, Terego, Yumbe)

And they will visit the following areas: Gulu, Soroti, Bukedea, Jinja, Iganga, Mbale, Mbarara, Rukungiri, Kabale, Kisoro, Fort Portal, Kyegegwa Refugee Camp, Adjumani, Nebbi, Pakwach, Central Uganda (135 districts)

Every dollar you donate goes towards patients in urgent need of prosthetic assistive technology. Please support the World Action Fund today in their mission to mobilize individuals with limb differences in Uganda!

*** Eligible for corporate matching? Please contact us through GoFundMe to get connected through Benevity! ***

Learn more about WAF's mission: https://wafuganda.org/

Check out prosthetics-making volunteers: http://enablingthefuture.org/