Here’s an introduction to one of the nonprofit groups that will be participating in Make the World: Prosthetics this month! Hands for Africa:
Who We Are
Hands for Africa was borne out of the aftermath of the Blood Diamond industry in Sierra Leone. We support the hundreds of thousands of children, women and men who have been maimed by machetes or explosive devices. These are individuals who have lost not only their limbs, but oftentimes their livelihoods as farmers or vendors. With the loss of a dignified way to earn a living, often comes a loss of all hope.
What We Do
Hands For Africa’s mandate is restoring lost hope to innocent victims of civil wars in African countries and to develop and implement programs that foster self-reliance by directly engaging the innocent victims and their communities to provide artificial limbs for amputees, wells for clean water, agricultural development, educational scholarships for the innocent victims and their children, medical and health care support, micro finance loans for trade and housing through community construction.
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit — and today we will be sharing about Make The World: Prosthetics, a one month program on Google+ aimed at crowdsourcing the manufacturing and delivery of printed prosthetics to people in need, hosted by Adafruit’s Limor Fried, Matt Griffin and Phillip Torrone. Key partners on the program include Robohand, MakerBot, The Open Hand Project, Anthromod, Prosthetics for Prosperity, eNABLE, The Lucky Fin Project and Hands for Africa.
Adafruit’s Makers, Hackers, Artists and Engineers Community under the subsection “Make The World” is hosting this month long effort. Community members will post up with what they can help with, suggest people in need, and post pictures of their accomplishments/builds. In addition Makers will be able to find support for the creation of Robohands in the eNABLE Community on Google+.