Give Ukraine a “Hand” is an initiative started by a man called Orest that took courses to learn how to manufacture and assemble prosthetic hands and learned a methodology to do it for as low as $60 per prosthesis. He established contact with a prosthetic organization and many private manufactures who agreed to create 2-3 hundred prosthetic hands for people in Ukraine for free. On his facebook page Give a “Hand” he seeks to find volunteers interested to help assemble prosthetic hands, find people with disabilities in Ukraine who are missing hands, fingers, arms, and to help raise funds to pay for shipment costs, and to purchase more sophisticated prosthetics for those with more severe mutilations. Funds will also be needed to purchase $7,000 worth of equipment to set up two stations in Ukraine to manufacture new prosthetic hands and to manufacture replacement parts for already distributed hands. New hands will also be needed for kids every couple of years, as they outgrow the hands donated to them. These ‘hands’ will be gifted to Ukrainian people absolutely free. The initiative is running a fundraiser to help with initial costs.
There are few ways to participate in the project/community:
- Find a Ukrainian soldier, kid, or person, who is missing finger, hand, arm; make pictures, record information and story, take measurements. Once you find a person in Ukraine who is missing finger/s, hand/s, arm/s, please contact us with a short description and instructions will be given what information to collect and how to take measurements.
- Volunteer your time to assemble one or more prosthetic hand, arm, or finger. Once custom-made prosthetic is manufactured, it is shipped to you with specific instructions (instructional video) how to assemble it.
- Volunteer your time and funds to ship assembled hand/arm/finger to Ukraine, directly to the home address of the assigned individual with disability.
- Donate funds to purchase more sophisticated prosthetic hands/arms, equipment to set up two stations in Ukraine to service replacement parts for and to update already distributed prosthetics. Individual, specific fund raisers will be posted once the needs for funds arise.
Read more and be sure to like the page Give a “Hand” to be updated about developments.
