In Partnership with Nippon Foundation, Cambodia Trust UERMMMCI to Open First Philippine School of Prosthetics, Orthotics The University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center Inc. (UERMMMCI), in cooperation with Nippon Foundation and Cambodia Trust, is set to open the Philippine School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (PSPO). The first of its kind in the country and only the 12th of its kind in the world, the PSPO is geared towards training, service and research on the fabrication, development and clinical application of mobility devices for persons with disability (PWD).
The PSPO will be formalized via the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) by UERMMMCI President Romeo Divinagracia, Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa and Cambodia Trust Executive Director Carson Harte. The MOU, which will be signed on October 19, 2010, 12 nn, at the UERMMMCI College of Medicine Auditorium, will cover a 10-year, $7 Million grant for the PSPO curriculum.
The PSPO will be under the UERMMMCI College of Physical Therapy and will be based on World Health Organization guidelines and International Society of Prosthetics and Orthotics standards.
The PSPO’s Bachelor of Science in Prosthetics and Orthotics course offering will entail a total of five school years and will be open for SY 2011-2012 student applicants starting this November.
The program will benefit the Philippines immensely, considering that 5% of the Filipino population suffers from disabilities due to amputations, limb loss, paralysis, weakness or pain and are unable to go to school, seek employment and/or handle self-care due to the absence of prosthetic or orthotic devices. The PSPO would soon make prosthetic and orthotic service and devices more affordable and more readily available in the country, allowing PWDs to become more productive, empowered and fulfilled.
The UERMMMCI Philippine School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (PSPO)
Pioneering advocacy for training, service and research on Mobility Devices for the Disabled
Once implemented, the UERMMMCI PSPO shall provide the practical, permanent and sustainable solution to the barriers which hinder reintegration of persons with disabilities (PWDs) as productive members of the society. Most importantly, it shall empower them as key players in health programs and prime movers towards national economic growth and development.
Orthotics refers to externally applied devices that provide alignment, correct deformity, prevent contractures and reduce pain in body parts.
Prosthetics refers to artificial devices that replace body parts that are incomplete, absent or amputated from birth, trauma, cancer, infection, diabetes
The UERMMMCI PSPO shall initiate the development of low-cost, high-function mobility devices that are affordable, appropriate and accessible to every Filipino, particularly PWDs, through globally competitive training, community-based service and locally relevant researches.
Facts:
Challenges:
Opportunities:
Indirect Opportunities:
Whereas the primary goal of the UERMMMCI PSPO is to ensure PWDs’ sustainable community reintegration and economic empowerment, its windfall ripples towards countrywide economic growth and development.
Feasibility:
Physicians for Peace-in its 2006-2009 Philippine Missions Report to the World Health Organization on June 25, 2009, entitled “Challenges of Walking Free from Disability”-stated the need for the establishment of a Prosthetics and Orthotics School.
A visit on behalf of Cambodia Trust and International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics (ISPO) by Executive Director Carson Harte on November 28 to December 4, 2009, concluded the feasibility of starting the course in June 2011, utilizing the WHO-ISPO Prosthetics and Orthotics curriculum.
A visit by Nippon Foundation Executive Director Shuichi Ohno on March 3-5, 2010, concurred with the feasibility evaluation of Cambodia Trust, ISPO and Physicians for Peace.
Expectations:
For the first 10 years, Cambodia Trust and Nippon Foundation shall provide $7 million (PhP 315 Million) educational grant to establish and render the school viable through the provision of foreign faculty members, scholarships, equipment, supplies, tools, library, curriculum and ISPO evaluators.
Within and beyond 10 years, the UERMMMCI PSPO will ensure the viability and sustainability of the course through the provision of:
Endowments, donations and sponsorships by international and local organizations supporting prosthetic and orthotic education, services and research.
The Nippon Foundation was established in 1962 as a non-profit philanthropic organization, active both in Japan and abroad. Since the beginning, the Foundation’s efforts to bolster the domestic development of the island nation of Japan have focused largely on the maritime and shipping fields. As the years went by, the Foundation expanded its activities to include such fields as education, social welfare and public health, both within Japan and in more than one hundred countries to date.
The Foundation’s fundamental aim is the realization of a peaceful and prosperous global society, in which none need struggle to secure their basic human rights. As we work toward this goal, it is essential on the one hand to respect the different value systems embraced by the world’s many cultures, but on the other to transcend the political, religious, racial and national boundaries that divide the world.
The Nippon Foundation’s methodology, similarly, is founded on a continual effort to grasp the world’s evolving trends and social conditions, and to ascertain the global community’s most urgent needs. Not all problems are created equal. Our prime concern, therefore, is to grasp the essence of the problems faced by humankind. Then, in order to respond to them flexibly, we select those that fit our priorities, addressing them in a thorough and detailed manner.
We work to not be blindly influenced by precedent, but rather proactively seek out alternative solutions to the world’s problems, enacting them expediently.
The Nippon Foundation feels a strong sense of responsibility and mission as it works together with the people of the world in developing the Foundation’s activities. For the sake of humankind and the world in general, the Foundation brings together the world’s wisdom, and uses it to transform society“The World is one family; all mankind are brothers and sisters.”
Ryoichi Sasakawa (1899-1995),
Founder of The Nippon Foundation
Cambodia Trust is a UK-registered charity established in 1989. It was founded in Oxford, UK, by Stan Windass, John Pedler and Dr. Peter Carey following the request of then Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen for assistance to the country’s thousands of landmine survivors.
Recognized as leaders in the field of prosthetics and orthotics, Cambodia Trust sees itself as a specialist “task force,” working in countries affected by conflict, disaster and poverty where the rehabilitation services for disabled people are non-existent or inadequate.
Cambodia Trust works with local partners to build such services up from scratch, training the local staff needed with the end goal of handing over its projects to local management/ government once there is enough local capacity. It aims to tackle three key challenges: lack of capacity, lack of access to rehabilitation services, and lack of access to education and employment. Cambodia Trust is the first non-government in Cambodia, and among the first in the world, to be ISO-certified, specifically achieving ISO 9001:2000 certification.
Within the last two decades, Cambodia Trust has been fulfilling its mission via grants and endowments from individual and institutional donors. To date, it has three rehabilitation centers in Cambodia established within 1992 to 1995. In 1994, it opened the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics in Phnom Penh. In 1999, community-based rehabilitation projects were established in all three rehabilitation centers to reduce poverty among disabled people living in Cambodia’s impoverished rural areas.
In 2000, with the support of Japan’s Nippon Foundation, Cambodia Trust began fact-finding missions to other developing countries in the region to see where its experience and expertise can be shared. In 2002, Cambodia Trust became one of the first NGOs in the world, and the first in Cambodia, to achieve ISO 9001:2000 certification-a huge step towards sustainability.
Within 2003 and 2004, with funding and support from Nippon Foundation, work began on establishing Cambodia Trust’s second school of prosthetics and orthotics, in Sri Lanka. In 2005 Cambodia Trust and Timor-based ASSERT opened the Timor Loro Sa’e Centre for Physical Rehabilitation, the first rehabilitation centre for people with disabilities in Timor. In 2008, Cambodia Trust embarks on a new partnership project in Indonesia: the Jakarta School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, the first training centre in Indonesia for rehabilitation specialists.
For its humanitarian work in the last two decades, Cambodia Trust and its officers have won several awards, including the 2008 Beacon Prize for Leadership, the “Nobel Prize for charities”; the 2006 Charter from the Portuguese Presidency; the 2004 Solidarité Central Charity Fund award from the European Commission; the 2002 AGFUND International Prize for pioneering projects in developing countries, winning for “Rehabilitation and Integration of People with Special Needs” and awarded at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris; and the 2000 Gold Award for Humanitarian Development from the Royal Cambodian Government.
For more on Cambodia Trust, visit www.cambodiatrust.org.uk
Office of the College Dean – College of Allied Rehabilitation Sciences
Business Address
4/F Tan Yan Kee Building
UERM Memorial Medical Center
64 Aurora Blvd., Brgy. Dona Imelda
Quezon City 1113
Direct Line
Trunkline
Business Hours
Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5 pm PST
