World Rehabilitation Fund Commits to Improving Services at St. Vincent’s Centre for Handicapped Children

The World Rehabilitation Fund (WRF) has renewed its commitment to improving the quality of services at St. Vincent’s Centre for Handicapped Children following the “Spirit of Hope” dinner in New York City last October to honor Sister Joan Margaret’s lifetime of service to the children of Haiti.

In fact, during the past two years, the WRF has invested more than $100,000 in equipment and supplies to St. Vincent’s. It has also initiated training in modern and cost-effective techniques for technicians. The WRF has set the following goals for collaboration with St. Vincent’s:

- Expanding orthotic/prosthetic training for two technicians:
- Training them so they may, in turn, train other rehabilitation workers;
- Providing physical therapy training; and
- Upgrading the workshop’s facilities and equipment so it can become a greater national resource for people with disabilities.

As a first step to improve the quality of work in the Brace and Prosthetics Shops, Pierre Guy Theodore, a young graduate of the school (and employee of the Brace Shop) has received a WRF-initiated scholarship to pursue training in Canada. Pierre Guy is a double amputee himself and beneficiary of new, lightweight prostheses recently introduced at St. Vincent’s by the WRF. Following his return to Haiti he will introduce the new methods and techniques to the other members of the staff.

Pierre Guy will travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a second round of training later this year, again through the efforts of the World Rehabilitation Fund.

In order to provide adequate space for more physical therapy, gait training, and occupational therapy, improvement in the physical plant of St. Vincent’s (much of which is more than 40 years old) will be required. Remodeling of the present facilities was recently added as one of the five projects of the Haiti Initiative of Episcopal Relief and Development. The Haiti Initiative is being coordinated by the Office of Development of the Episcopal Church of Haiti.

The WRF and the Development Office of the Episcopal Church of Haiti have committed themselves to work together to find support for the Initiative project at St. Vincent’s. At the invitation of both the WRF and the Development Office, Mr. Charles Cunningham, an Atlanta architect and member of First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA, visited the school and began to develop architectural plans that will provide new “rehabilitation space” at the school, as well as additional classrooms and larger surgical facilities.

About the Brace Shop
St. Vincent’s Centre for Handicapped Children has the only brace shop in Haiti, and probably the only one in the world entirely staffed by young men who are deaf. It was created in 1957 with two deaf boys who graduated from St. Vincent’s and learned basic skills in brace making and fitting in the United States.

The Brace Shop fills a large need for the orthopedic clinic, outpatient department, students of the centre, and for the handicapped all around the country. Shop workers and trainees make and repair braces, prosthetic devices (artificial limbs), crutches and wheel chairs for adults and children from all of Haiti.