Our charity timeline for projects and grants…
2018 – 2019…
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Awarded to Mahmoud Alfatafta, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. For the project Investigation of differences in gait parameters, gait variability and dynamic stability between congenital and acquired limb loss.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £93.25. Awarded to Eleanor Bacon, Harold Wood User Group, England. For the project Falls and balance exercise class for people with lower limb amputations.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Awarded to Hannah Jones, Newcastle University, England. For the project Creation of a user-centred vision for prosthetic limbs and clinical care.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Awarded to Les Malone, NHS Lothian, Scotland. For the project Scottish Post Polio Network User Involvement Event.
PORT-ER International Grant: £250. Awarded to Eunice Kombe, Association of Prosthetists and Orthotists in Tanzania, Tanzania. For the project Annual General Meeting and Annual Conference (on condition that users are represented).
PORT-ER International Grant: £250. Awarded to Zia Ur Rehman, Walk AID Prosthetics & Orthotics, Pakistan. For the project Awareness Session on Social Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities.
PORT-ER International Grant: £250. Awarded to Elvas Benedeta Singini, 500 miles, Malawi. For the project barriers that patients face when accessing 500 miles prosthetics and orthotics service at Mzuzu central hospital.
PORT-ER International Grant: £100. Awarded to Jacqueline Tembo, Zambia for the project Establishment of Zambian Disability Mentorship Association.
2017 – 2018…
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Edinburgh Limb Loss Association (ELLA) £250 for their re-launch.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Moving Forward (Portsmouth) for help with restarting their amputee charity.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £250. Orthotic and Prosthetic Users Stanmore (OPUS) for their work.
2016 – 2017…
Patient information day – prosthetics and orthotics. Building Confidence: Comfort, function and appearance. Saturday 3 December 2016
A one day event on 3 December 2016 . The event was held on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. We filmed the event and you can view the videos by clicking on our 2016 event web page.
PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL Grant: £1,475. Prosthetics and Orthotics Association Ethiopia for an event involving professionals and users (pending acceptance)
PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL Grant: £1,000. A follow on grant to the 500 miles ‘Burn injuries and disability project’ in Malawi.
PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL Grant:
2015 – 2016…
Innovations in Prosthetics and Orthotics. A patient information day.
A one day event on 3 December 2015 encouraging innovations in new technologies and services in prosthetics and orthotics. The event was held on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. See our dedicated event web page for more information.
PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL Grant of £1000 to 500 miles ‘Burn injuries and disability project’ in Malawi
This is a follow on grant to our earlier support to this project, in the knowledge that long term support for this work is needed. Please see our Newsletter 2 September 2015 for a project update report.
2014 – 2015…
PORT-ER UK Grant: £486. We are supporting Judy Scopes, a PhD student at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh for her study Clinimetric Properties of Outcome Measures of Physical Function used with Lower Limb Amputees. The Trustees were very impressed with this application and would have liked to have awarded more, but due to limited funds and other commitments were unable to do this. However, in order to encourage and support this research the Trustees agreed to award £486 to cover the participant travel and participation costs associated with one part of the study which involves established amputees.
PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL Grant of £5000 to 500 miles ‘Burn injuries and disability project’ in Malawi
Burn injuries account for around 4% of all injuries attending the Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) in Lilongwe, Malawi. Around 370 burn injuries are recorded in the trauma registry in a year. Most patients are under 15 years old and the main cause of the injury is scalding followed by exposure to flames. 26% of patients undergo amputation and a similar number have surgical contracture release.
During 2014 the 500 miles Prosthetics and Orthotic (P&O) Centre, a department of the hospital treated a number of burn injury outpatients. PORT-ER’s grant allows for 500 miles to provide a better focus on people with burns injuries who require P&O treatment integrated with their existing activities.
The project will see 500 miles:
- Continue to manage contractures with orthotic and/or prosthetic interventions.
- Liaise with the burns ward at KCH meaning that 500 miles will educate people working in the burns ward about how their service can assist burns patients and about how important early intervention is. 500 miles will also help the burns ward identify more potential patients for the 500 miles service and earlier.
- Include specific mention of burns patients in 500 miles sensitisations in advance of outreach, so that people in villages and people working with people with disabilities who bring potential patients to the outreach clinics know that this assistance is available.
- Ensure that all of 500 miles qualified staff are equipped to give advice to burns patients about managing contractures.
- Develop materials to advise burns patients about contracture management.
- At the next review, extend 500 miles’ standard materials to include specific reference to burns injuries.
- When a rehabilitation technician is allocated to the service by the Ministry of Health, provide physiotherapy to all burns patients.
PORT-ER Grant award £1,500: Rehabilitation Worldwide – Uganda Polio Project
Port-er has awarded this grant to Shirley Cox-Christie, a Scottish prosthetists/orthotist for two activities in Rehabilitation Worldwide – Uganda Polio Project. The Rehabilitation Worldwide – Uganda Polio Project is an on-going initiative since 2012 and there exists an opportunity to support the project as the project team will again be going out to Kampala in 2015. The overall project has to date provided donated orthoses and conducted training and research. The Uganda Polio Project’s continued aim is to improve the theoretical and practical skills of the existing Orthopaedic Technologists via classroom teaching / lectures and practical demonstrations.
This PORT-ER grant will help to support two aspects of the Uganda polio project in 2015:
- The project aims to broker a meeting to start the first steps towards initiating a proper supply chain. There is no regular supply chain for materials and components. Once a supply chain is established, the Orthopaedic Technologists will have materials with which to provide a service to everyone that needs it and not only to their private patients. Additionally, the materials can be used in the practical and clinical elements of training courses.
- This project will provide training and update the skills of the local orthotists and orthopaedic technologists working at Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda.
The clinical orthotic and prosthetic training that will continue to be run throughout the 2 weeks of the visit, will fulfil the “Mobility Matters” PORT-ER initiative.
2013 – 2014…
Mobility Matters project: Ongoing project
The mobility needs of people in the UK and the mobility needs of people in developing countries are equally important. We believe that people with physical disabilities have the right to achieve all they can be in the context of their own environment. We are delivering a new awareness raising campaign because Mobility Matters! We wish to highlight there there are significant developments needed to support fuller inclusion of people with physical disabilities in society.
In the UK, the following information from the Office for Disability Issues helps to illustrate this point:
- “There are over eleven million people with a limiting long term illness, impairment or disability in Great Britain.
- In Great Britain, the most commonly-reported impairments are those that affect mobility, lifting or carrying.
- A substantially higher proportion of individuals who live in families with disabled members live in poverty, compared to individuals who live in families where no one is disabled
- Over a quarter of disabled people say that they do not frequently have choice and control over their daily life.
- Around a third of disabled people experience difficulties related to their impairment in accessing public, commercial and leisure goods and services.
- Disabled people remain significantly less likely to participate in cultural, leisure and sporting activities than non-disabled people”.
The burden of disability in the UK is complicated by the ageing population and a large proportion of disabilities relate to vascular problems. For example 100 people in the UK a week lose a lower limb due to diabetes (Diabetes UK).
In less resourced settings in developing countries the burden of disability is more extreme as expressed in The World Report on Disability (WHO, 2011). At present, only around 10% of people with a physical disability in the world who need assistive technology can actually access it. Some of our past project grants to developing country organizations also illustrate the need for development internationally.
Our campaign involves PORT-ER’s Chief Executive Officer, Diana Corrick, being supported to plan and deliver awareness raising activities and our 2014 grant round welcomes Mobility Matters related applications for project funding. See GRANTS. We need your support to be able to fund this project and develop our ability to award grants to appropriate local projects.
PORT-ER UK Grant: £435. PORT-ER supported prosthetist/orthotist undergraduate student Mark Currie for expenses to design and conduct his 4th year undergraduate project called Prosthetic Rehabilitation Professionals’ Opinions of Charitable Bodies. Mark presented his summary poster on 24 May 2013 at a Stakeholder Day at the National Centre for Prosthetics and Orthotics at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. Mark’s final dissertation can be seen FINAL DISSERTATION MARK CURRIE 200930725
2012 – 2013 AWARD TO PORT-ER, PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL GRANT AND AMPUTEE RUNNING EVENT
2011-2012 PORT-ER GRANTS, AWARD TO PORT-ER, RUNNING COACHING CLASS AND ONE LIFE – LIVE IT EXHIBITION
2010 – 2011 4TH PORT-ER RUNNING MASTER CLASS AND PORT-ER INTERNATIONAL GRANTS
2009-2010 STRATEGIC INPUT, SPEEAD MASTER CLASSES, SPEEAD CONFERENCE AND SPEEAD ADMINISTRATION
2008-2009 FOOTWEAR DESIGN COLLECTION, PORT-ER GRANT AND A RUNNING MASTER CLASS IN EXETER
2007-2008 PORT-ER GRANTS AND PORT-ER RUNNING MASTER CLASSES
2006 – 2007 PORT-ER FOUNDED