23 January 2017

It’s very easy to take the use of both hands for granted however after participating in the Helping Hands program back in January we now appreciate how lucky we are to have both hands in working order.

Sadly, there are over 100 million active landmines in around 60 different countries and this results in around 2,000 landmine accidents every month (that’s one accident every 20 minutes). One of the most terrible things about landmines is that they aren’t designed to kill people… just severely debilitate. 95% of landmine victims survive and of those, 75% will lose the use of at least one limb. The Helping Hands Program allows participants to build prosthetic hands that are then donated to amputee landmine victims throughout the developing world.

The hands come completely disassembled and working in teams we all put our heads together to build functioning hands – not surprisingly the team full of ladies was the first to finish as they actually referred to the instructions.

We would like to thank Rotary Cairns for offering us the opportunity to partake in such a humbling and rewarding experience, knowing that a deserving recipient is waiting excitedly for their new hand to arrive and that we have played a small part in improving their quality of life.