Update on Alan's stool and party

Good News!

 Alan's stool arrived in Malawi and here is Anna helping a child to try it out

Having made the Christmas hats the Monday Men's group wore them 

while painting the twisted paper stars.

All this activity to prepare for a party with Alan

Party time and Dick and Alan pull a home-made cracker

Alan's cracker gift is a photo' of the child on his stool

Friends together

Please note- this photo' was composed especially to show of the paper stars!

Paper Furniture Men's group

The Men's group is concentrating on making step-up stools to send with the therapists who will be teaching on cerebral palsy in African countries. 

These stools fit into the suitcase well and are very useful for demonstrations with children

Alan is part of the group. He has multiple sclerosis so it was hard and slow work for him - frustrating because he had been able to to woodwork professionally before becoming ill. Anyway he persisted and made a number of step-up stools.

Now this stool in the photo is in the post on its way to Malawi where Occupational Therapist Anna and Malawians are trying to make equipment to help the children in sitting.

We are sending Alan's stool - a sign of perseverance in difficulties 

What better encouragement for children with disabilities?

Good news from Uganda

January - C in the chair that was a model one for the APT course run for HoCePa in Uganda

Despite the temporary strap he was going to play and reached for the doll - 

Reaching................................................Achieving!

This little boy came with his grandmother to the APT course. He has cerebral palsy with fluctuating tone and had difficulty sitting and standing. He also has two great assets; as you can see from the photographs, he is really interested in being busy playing and he has a grandmother who is active and creative in his development.

On the course he was a great model and full of life. Joy thinks of him fondly, " he was a scamp; he had a chair but really wanted to stand".

There was an APT standing board so Renate, a physiotherpist who was helping on the course,

let him try it to assess him. He had 'dancing feet' and struggled to keep them down, mainly due to the lack of support in the standing board (he needed a higher support, less width and a tray to bring his weight forward over his base). 

His grandmother like the others was learning APT step-by-step and was making a chair for him.

On the last day they cut out the pieces for a standing frame for C. She took them home and make it there. 

Grandmother and the standing frame pieces on the last day of the course

She manged to email some photos today

July - C at home playing and sitting in his chair made by his grandmother

C - Standing and playing!
The lovely big tray for the chair is being used to give a play area when standing.
Congratulations to a wonderful grandmother and grandson.

Premiere of Purple Fields Production film for CPA in Ghana

On 4th February 2011 the film called 'The Time is Now' was launched at the British Council in Accra. This film was produced by Elspeth Waldie from the charity called Purple Fields Productions. It is about cerebral palsy and the importance of coming for physiotherapy and the possibilities of help including equipment. It is a wonderful film and copies were given to representatives of different organizations who will show it again, using it as a tool for awareness raising about cerebral palsy and what can be done to help.

While the seats at the British Council filled up there were slides of APT equipment being used and physiotherapy to help children with cerebral palsy.

There was around 90 people attending including some of the film stars

Osmond Annum chairing the questions, suggestions and discussions on what can be done to help children and their families in Ghana

God bless and speed the work being done in Ghana

CPA and Hocepa - Uganda Course

A busy time on the APT section of the course

- lots of learning snd useful items made

A closer view of the chairs

There was a day for making toys - spot some in the photograph

Party and play time

Last day with certificates on show

A busy week

This has been another busy week.

We visited Dr Badoe who is a paeditrician and very supportive of the training work of Cerebral Palsy Africa. He sees many children with different disabilities but says that the majority have cerebral palsy. One of the causes he notices is untreacted jaundice in newborn babies. He has been working for the last 2 years to start a child abuse centre. Finally all is ready to help children who are abused. Sadly this includes disabled children.

We have been working on items for the Hospitals

Jean started to make a ride on donkey requested for use at one of the hospitals

Anna painted the tro-tro walker

Richard varnished it (amongst lots of other work) and

we all delivered the tro-tro walker to the hospital

......

Then on the 28th January 2011 The Venash-N Enterprise

Appropriate Paper-based Technology (APT) workshop was opened

Veronica Hansen- Nortey and her husband

Visitors, including 2 reporters and someone from the Pink radio station crowded in after the prayers, singing and the ribbon was cut

The special cake

A friend made a special cake - there were ribbons everywhere - great celebration

Tools and patterns hanging ready for action. Thanks Jane for helping make the patterns - they are really appreciated.

Veronica with a chair she has made - see removable footrest

Anna in the 'porch' of the container with Veronica's son and family friend

Mandy (who helped start and inclusive school in Accra calledMulti Kids) talking with Veronica. She says she knows how hard it is to get a new project going in Ghana and thinks Veronica and family have done so well

One of the children who comes to Multi Kids is going to have a new chair support.

The footstool is just fine -

thanks to Alan Balcombe and Richard Simmonds from the UK Paper Furniture Social Enterprise - Monday group.

Monica, who works at the school, did the CPA Apt course in 2009 and she is going to make him a seat support - the one in the photo has an intergral foot rest and is too short but they want to keep it as a model.

Ghana is a great place for making furniture from Cardboard - loads of imports, cement comes in strong brown bags - great for final covering of tiems and newspapers are used - unlikely that people will all read online for some time considering the difficulties in staying online.

Follow-up training day

The two Mums who are making APT chairs and standing frames for sale.

A follow-up training day for them.

It is important that work is documented. We went over record-keeping (they seemed a bit dubious about this) and then gave them their cameras from CPA to help (really pleased about this!)

Using the wooden giraffe that Richard is making to decide on how high from the floor we should have a ride-on horse. The reason J and Jean are paying no attention to the camera is because they're looking for a tape-measure

J's sister and Anna being artistic

The painted tro-tro

J able to sit alone with some help from Anna's first APT item

- the painted chair

It is too small for J who has long legs but it worked well on the chair jammed up to the table with his feet hanging

Training in Uganda - January 2011

The first CPA training course is currently being run in Uganda. Hocepa (Hope for Cerebral Palsy in Uganda) is a parents organization and they requested and have arranged the training.

Renate has been running the first part of the course on the physiotherapy side and helping participants know how to handle and help the child at home.

The Ugandan participants
They are now doing APT training with Joy helping

They will make items for their children and help others with children needing chairs in their homes - a new group of APTers/ Paper Furniture Makers

Making boards

Joy demonstrating the strength of rolled pieces of paper especially when the grains are in the direction to hold up a book over a gap.

A few days away from Accra

The beautiful cape Coast with the dreadful history - it was awful enough just to see the places where people were held before being shipped off to be slaves
Never again








Seeing the equipment made in 2009!





Richard helping hold the feet while Joana shows her skills - she leant a lot from a CPA course and wants to do her Masters on the topic.

The classroom for children with cerebral palsy, named in honour of Gloria Godfrey who worked towards this and worked hard to help Veronica, Dorinda and Eddie Doyle (VSO carpentry teacher) run a course on the Assistive Cardboard Equipment in Cape Coast. It was held in the School for the Deaf in the end of 2009 and resulted in all the chairs and standing frames being made.