The Collaboratory at Messiah College has started a new partnership with International Nepal Fellowship, and we are traveling to work with one of their hospitals in Pokhara, Nepal.  We will be traveling from January 7 to January 24, 2020.

 

Our team is looking to begin design work of a locally made wheelchair and help out in their prosthetics workshop. This is such an incredible opportunity for us to better understand how engineering can be used throughout the world to increase hope and transform lives!

 

The International Nepal Fellowship (INF) (www.inf.org) was formed in 1952 and works with people who suffer from leprosy, eyesight and hearing loss, spinal cord injuries, and other disabilities. INF runs three hospitals in the western part of the country with the largest called Green Pastures being located in Pokhara, where our team will be traveling to. Many Nepali children are born with disabilities or become injured by accidents and are often left with limited access to healthcare or resources to help them throughout life. INF is an organization that is staffed by international medical missionaries as well as Nepali doctors and medical workers. Many people travel from far away to receive treatment at Green Pastures because they have a great reputation as they have worked to not only heal the body but also the heart and soul.

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INF currently imports wheelchairs from China and India but they have difficulty in getting the chairs through customs and into Nepal as well as trouble finding parts to repair them. Also, these chairs are not always the right solution for this region of Nepal. The wheelchair team is going to meet with doctors, physical therapists, and mobility workers to determine the right wheelchair design made from materials that can be purchased within Nepal. The Collaboratory has several projects in the area of prosthetics and we hope by supporting their prosthetics workshop we can learn from each other and possibly partner with them in this area as well. The Collaboratory has been designing a low-cost prosthetic knee and also developing the capability to 3D print orthotics, braces, and prosthetics and so we hope to share this knowledge with them.

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You can follow our progress through this blog which will try to keep updated (as long as we have internet access) with information about our trip and the Nepali word of the day!

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