Irede Foundation Pledges to Support Thousands of Child Amputees with Prosthetic Limbs
Hamid Ayodeji
A nonprofit organization, The IREDE Foundation, has expressed its dedication towards taking necessary actions aimed at enabling hundreds of child amputees have access to prosthetic limbs.
This, the organization revealed during its 10th year anniversary ceremony, recently in Lagos.
The organization further disclosed that In the next 10 years, it is looking at expanding the frontiers of its operations, and collaborating with stakeholders as it remains dedicated towards providing
more limbs for amputees around Nigeria and Africa, thereby increasing educational inclusion and contributing towards the sustainable economic development of the nation.
Speaking at the event, the Board Chairman of trustees, Irede Foundation, Kunle Akinkugbe explained that the organization is developing its self into an institutional powerhouse for innovations around the issues of disabilities and child amputations.
He said, “In these 10 years we achieved incredible things as an organization, we gave limbs to over one hundred and fifty child amputees, and had six Out On A Limb walk raising awareness about disability and child amputees.
“All these could not have been possible without the support of our partners, donors and stakeholders who have also come to believe this dream that every child deserve to life a limitless life.
“The past 10 years has been incredible, and we are here to dream again. IREDE is a dreaming organization, because we believe to help people live their dreams you have to be a dreamer yourself.”
On her part, Founder, The Irede Foundation, Crystal Chigbu stated that over the past 10 years, The IREDE Foundation through its Limb2Care initiative has helped child amputees, their families and caregivers to find new meaning to life, navigate the devastating effect of limb loss, and live full lives beyond the amputation.
She further noted that the fact that when amputation happens, it changes the trajectory of a family, decisions are now made based on their new reality and in most cases, such families are stuck and do not know how to move from where they are.
“Over the period of our existence we have worked with about 5000 families; through the Limb2Care initiative, and through its advocacy programs has worked with the government in implementing inclusive education policies in Lagos state and the general public through its awareness initiative to educate the society on limb loss and issues bothering around disability to reduce to the barest minimum discrimination and exclusion of persons with disabilities,” Chigbu added.
Meanwhile, Senior Programs Officer, The Irede Foundation, Wuraola Kayode shared insights on the organizations mission for the next decade which includes providing psychosocial support for their caregivers and families so they can live independent and limitless lives, as well as empowering both new and existing child amputees with one thousand five hundred prosthetic limbs by 2023.
Kayode explained that the organization would also create an Irede Limb Centre in order to create a global center for research and development that discovers and innovates the next set of prosthetic limbs for amputees.
