Students from Jacaranda School for Orphans and Ridley College in Canada on Tuesday came together to work on a prosthetic hand project at Jacaranda School for Orphans in Blantyre. The students assembled prosthetic hands that are shipped to countries where children have lost their hands due to wars and other reasons. The students also used art to decorate the bags where the artificial hands are placed.
They also drew flowers and other things as a mark of love to children who have lost hands. Rob Burke from Ridley College, who has been coming to Jacaranda School for Orphans for years, said, apart from other activities, students from the two schools decided to engage in assembling artificial hands as part of undertaking projects that bring about change to the society. “In Canada, we have a company known as Odyssey Teams that puts together build-a-hand kits.
The kit comes with all the parts that you need to assemble and all what you need is to follow instructions,” Burke said. He said once assembled, the artificial hands are sent back to the company to do a quality check before being dispatched to hospitals and other places where they are needed. “And, in the process, the students also draw artworks on bags and the idea is to show their creativity but also send words of love to children that will be receiving the artificial hands,” he said.
Burke said, through the project, they are also able to show that art and science work together as seen in the assembling of the hands .
