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Mail Tribune
Southern Oregon New Source
December 30, 2006
By:  John Darling

Giving hope, and hands

Rotary funds give invaluable gift of prosthetic limbs in Africa, Asia

It's just a simple $50 spring-loaded plastic prosthetic hand, but it's changing lives in the Third World — and two Ashland residents are heading up fundraising and leading overseas trips to get prosthetics like this distributed, all free of charge.

Working with funding from local and regional Rotary clubs, Tim Bewley and Dr. Carol Fellows have taken the strap-on hands to Vietnam and east Africa, so far equipping 230 amputees, enabling them almost immediately to write, operate a computer, tie shoes and, as one recipient put it, "walk down the street, tall and proud, a complete man."

The project, called "Give Hope — Give a Hand," started as an informal partnership between the Ashland Rotary Club and Michael Mendonca, a Rotarian from Menlo Park, Calif., whose firm, Stack Plastics, a plastic injection-mold company, had begun manufacturing the devices.

The hands were designed by Southern Californian Ernie Meadows, an industrial design engineer who wanted to create a legacy for his daughter Ellen, who was killed in a car crash. Meadows wanted to invent a cheap, simple hand — and his conditions were that it be free and that no one would profit from it, said Mendonca.

Bewley, who recently resigned as co-director of Rogue Valley Television to head the new Ellen Meadows Prosthetic Hand Foundation, has in the past 13 months traveled the Third World with Mendoca, Fellows, Ashland Rotary President Jim Dunn and their spouses, handing out the hands to dozens of queued-up amputees and "always, the first thing they want to do is grab a pen and write," said Bewley. "What they learn in the first day is nothing short of astounding — counting paper money, cutting meat, hoeing a garden — and just feeling like a whole person, not having what they feel is a symbol of disgrace, an empty sleeve hanging down."

The LN-4 hand (LN stands for "Ellen") has three curved, fixed digits opposed by two moveable digits that stay locked on an object until the whole hand is tipped back at the wrist, freeing the moveable digits. It is operated by the real hand or by pushing it against anything. It's strapped on, not surgically attached, and has high-grip ribbing on the inside of digits.

Some $75,000 has been raised among Rotarians to create a mold for mass production of the LN-4 in China — and a like amount for the next model, the LN-4A, improved and made larger for adult male hands.

As the project spreads to hundreds of thousands of likely recipients around the world, the foundation plans to create an endowment fund, so it can be self-sustaining. During this process, said Bewley, "Rotary will be playing a huge role."

It's now a nonprofit separate from Rotary — and Bewley will become executive director when he finishes his upcoming year as governor of Rotary District 5110 in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

It was originally thought the hands would go mostly to children maimed by land mines, but surveys of African recipients show they're going to people of all ages, with 45 percent injured by "social violence," such as robberies, political oppression and domestic abuse.

The chopping off of hands with machetes is a common form of intimidation in Africa, Bewley noted, and is often intended to keep the victim from using the trigger on a gun. The second- largest cause of hand loss is vehicle and other accidents.

Little technology, skill or funding is available toward the effort of reattaching damaged limbs.

"The vast majority of replacements are for the dominant hand," said Dunn, "and if you want to appreciate what it's like to live without your dominant hand, just try working around the house with your dominant hand behind your back for a while. It's very heart-warming and gratifying to help people get that back."

Target populations for free hands are identified by Rotary "group study exchange teams" — groups of professional, non-Rotarian people taken on expense-paid, month-long tours as "social ambassadors," promoting peace and goodwill, said Bewley.

Three trips have been made this year to the east-central African nations of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, sometimes with help from Rotary clubs in those regions. In between trips, Bewley and Fellows have made highly successful fundraising presentations to 68 Rotary clubs in this stateside region, he said.

As his first act with the new hand, an African named Moses wrote the traditional "Allahhu Akbar" (God is great) in Arabic, said Bewley, then in English for Americans to read, announcing with a laugh, "This hand writes in many languages!" The typical reaction among recipients who are otherwise usually expressionless from post-traumatic stress is to burst into huge smiles and start making the hand do new, previously impossible tasks, he said.

Americans giving away free things in countries with Muslim populations might be viewed dubiously, and in Uganda they were barred by militia who assumed they were CIA agents, said Bewley — that is, until one commander, who happened to be a Rotarian, got things straightened out, Bewley said.

The simple hand prosthetics continue in use with 99.9 percent of recipients in follow-up surveys, said Fellows, while expensive, chip-driven Western models prove complicated and are often set aside.

While helpful to those in need, the field work also has a life-changing effect on foundation workers, with Fellows saying, "Whatever we can do in the world community to make a difference is great — it has a huge emotional impact on them and us."

Mendonca, in a phone interview, said, "It's a life-changing opportunity, such as we don't get very often, if ever. You sign up for it or not, but if you do, it goes way beyond any job or task and you feel immensely accountable. You're changing lives and you need to perpetuate the process."

Bewley said, "the gifting of hands has made me a more compassionate person and defined a purpose for my life."

The Foundation is suggesting the hands be given in the name of oneself or, as a present, in the name of family, relatives and friends. Donations may go to the Ellen Meadows Prosthetic Hand Foundation, 1983 Crestview Drive, Ashland OR 97520 or via http://www.LN-4.org online. For more information, e-mail emphf@LN-4.org.

John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org