Since 1986 the Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology has been collaborating with international/national organisations to advance the production of assistive devices in countries with limited resources by means of skills-enhancing initiatives, such as courses and seminars.
The African Federation of Orthopaedic Technicians (FATO, Fédération Africaine des Techniciens Orthoprothésistes) is today mostly working in the French-speaking countries in West and Central Africa and covers 19 countries.
The Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology has since 2004 worked in cooperation with FATO in a project for capacity building and information dissemination with support from Sida, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Two project periods have run in 2004-05 and in 2006-2009.
Aims
The objective is to improve local production of assistive devices for people with disabilities in West and Central Africa, through skills development for personnel making the assistive devices, such as prostheses/orthoses, wheelchairs and crutches.
Project activities
- The newsletter FATO Info is published two-three times a year.
- Capacity building and skills training for technicians in seminars and courses: lately in Dakar, Senegal 2005 with 100 participants from 28 countries, in Kigali, Rwanda 2007 with 200 participants from 37 countries and in Hammamet, Tunisia 2009 with 223 participants from 40 countries.
- Eschange visits between workshops in different countries to promote knowledge and information about production techniques.
Training takes place in collaboration with Handicap International, France and ISPO, International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, and WHO, World Health Organisation.
About FATO
FATO was created in 1992 in Togo in West Africa with the aim to form a structure that gathers national associations of the technicians of orthopaedic technology and the technicians who locally produce assistive devices like wheelchairs, crutches and canes, i.e. the necessary assistive devices for people with mobility impairments.
The goal is to organise and coordinate actions to help the members to better execute their professional occupation. It is a professional interest union. The overall principal objective is to promote a better rehabilitation of people with disabilities.
Members include orthopaedic technicians, assistant technicians and orthopaedic shoemakers.
Today FATO has a presence in 19 countries in francophone West and Central Africa and has its headquarters in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
In West and Central Africa the total number of orthopaedic technicians is only around 300. They are working in 19 countries with a population of about 250 million people out of which around 25 million are people with disabilities. With so few technicians they need to be involved in a network to exchange experiences and develop their professional competence.
With so few technicians they need to be involved in a network to exchange experiences and develop their professional competence to develop and improve the production of assistive devices. Access to assistive devices is limited in these countries. Imported assistive devices are expensive and unavailable and only locally manufactured assistive devices are viable.
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