ISPO’s USAID funded program recently awarded a further 19 (nineteen) scholarship awards to students beginning their training as prosthetists/orthotists and orthopaedic technologists. This brings the total number of scholarship students funded under the current program “Rehabilitation of physically disabled people in developing countries” to ninety one.
The steering committee for the grant program met in Alexandria, Virginia, USA (close to Washington) at the end of October 2011 hosted by Catherine Carter, Executive Director at The American Board for Certification in Orthotics, Prosthetics and Pedorthics.
The program is USAID funded ($3,682,862) and has 3 work streams with the main activity being scholarships (ISPO Cat I & II). The end user work stream has already seen activity in Vietnam with graduates being interviewed with their patients. This builds upon earlier work and now a structured graduate audit process is being refined. The third area of activity will be to develop prosthetic & orthotic guidelines for services.
Scholarship students will return to their home countries upon graduation to help support national rehabilitation services in Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Cambodia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Namibia, Kenya, Chad, Tajikistan, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Guinea Bissau, Philippines, Indonesia, Angola, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Senegal, Benin, Madagascar, Mali, El Salvador, Zambia, Sierra Leone, and Ghana. The impact of this scholarship investment is expected to be profound, with each graduate able to care for hundreds of prosthetic and/or orthotic patients each year.
More information about the program is available here.
