Community of Volunteers Creates 3D-Printed Prosthetic Hands for Children

At last month’s IntraHealth International SwitchPoint conference I had the opportunity to put together a 3D-printed hand with e-Nable, a global community collaborating to make free 3d-printed prosthetic hands available to all who need them.

The hand wasn’t easy to put together and I got nowhere close to finishing, but I learned that through a little ingenuity and modern technology even prosthetic hands can be created and customized for those who don’t have one.

The hands all start with a 3D-printed mobile and are put together by strings and screws by volunteers. The hands are intended for children and adults who have who have wrists but no fingers or elbows with no wrists/hands.

e-Nable Hand — Pieces of a 3D-printed hand. Photo: Jennifer James

The hands are meant to do some everyday tasks like picking things up or holding cups, for example. They are not, however, full medical prosthetic hands.

“At $30-$50, they’re cheap enough that parents can order larger ones as their children grow,” wrote Margarite Nathe for IntraHealth International’s VITAL blog. “The hands are customizable, comfortable, and easy to assemble. And—in perhaps their greatest success—they are beautiful in the eyes of their users (who can choose hands in their favorite colors).”

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Jennifer JamesMay 12, 2015May 12, 2015Leave a comment

Africa, Blog, Ebola, Frontline Health Workers, Global Coverage, Women and Girls

Can Creative Innovators Drive Global Health and Humanitarian Change?

I am currently in a very small North Carolina town known for a few things: its infamous ballroom that was converted into a world class event space from an old, historic cotton mill, its Gastropub, its craft beer as well as its pristine location on the Haw River about twenty minutes from Chapel Hill.

I’m here for the SwitchPoint conference that fuses a combination of music, art, microlabs and 15-minute talks on a wide variety of issues ranging from using drones in humanitarian crises to being implored to add more Africa into our timelines and not excepting the narrow narrative arc of the continent.

SwitchPoint is presented by IntraHealth International, the 35-year-old global NGO that works in innovative ways with health workers in 100 countries. SwithPoint is IntraHealth International’s flagship conference where experts, and storytellers, and doers on the ground (wherever in the world that is) convene for two days for a conversation about ways to partner, collaborate, and innovate on ideas.

After the first day at SwitchPoint I walked away knowing there are new ways to reach online and offline communities with messages that moms want to hear and share – issues that not only affect women and children here in the United States, but globally as well.

We heard from extremely talented innovators, social entrepreneurs and others who are indeed innovating on ideas that are shaping the world really as we know it. The day started with Patrick Meier, who founded the Digital Humanitarian Network. He talked about the worldwide use of drones in places like Namibia for conservation efforts and in Haiti where after Hurricane Sandy drones were used to find standing water and flooding across the island country.

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Jennifer JamesApril 23, 2015May 12, 20152 Comments

Africa, Blog, Charity, Children, Clean Water and Sanitation, Communicable Disease, Family Planning, Frontline Health Workers, Maternal Health, newborn health, Water, Women and Girls

Our 12 Biggest Highlights of 2014

2014 was a very good year! We partnered with leading NGOs and nonprofits to advance causes that mean the difference between life and death and quality living for the world’s poorest citizens. We traveled around the world to report on water and sanitation, newborns, maternal health, disaster relief, and health workers. We traveled domestically to report on some of our partners’ milestone seminars, conferences, and panels. But most importantly, we kept the momentum going to work collectively as mothers who use social media for good.

We very much look forward to 2015 and what it has in store. Here are our twelve highlight moments of 2014 – in no particular order.

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Jennifer JamesJanuary 1, 2015July 22, 20153 Comments

Africa, Blog, Frontline Health Workers

Looking at Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in the Field

Amos Emmanuel Kakere really wanted to undergo voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC). A slight young man who looked far younger than his mere 24 years, Kakere, who is married and lives in Mhango village in Tanzania’s Shinyanga region, opted to undergo the procedure after seeing a large VMMC mobile field clinic near his village. The clinic, housed in a large, deployable tent and powered by … Continue reading Looking at Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in the Field

Jennifer JamesOctober 21, 2014November 15, 20141 Comment

Africa, Blog, Family Planning, Frontline Health Workers

Traveling to Tanzania With PSI, IntraHealth International, and Mandy Moore

Over the years I have had the distinct privilege of meeting health workers around the world from Ethiopia and Kenya to Tanzania and South Africa to India and Brazil. Health workers, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, are the unequivocal backbone of health systems that can oftentimes be severely taxed due to the overwhelming number of people who rely on them for care to the disarray of health systems’ frameworks coupled with a dismal lack of financial allocations to national health care.

Frontline health workers I have met throughout the years. Left to right: Angawadi workers in Delhi, a family planning health worker in Johannesburg, a member of the Health Development Army in Hawassa, Ethiopia, hospital administrators in Lusaka, Zambia, and nurses in Morogoro, Tanzania.