We are celebrating World Clubfoot Day on 3 June! We are grateful to work with many fantastic organisations, supporters, international faculty and NHS volunteers to help children born with clubfoot to walk.

Professor Chris Lavy, consultant orthopaedic surgeon, who leads the Africa Clubfoot Training project, said: ‘We are delighted to celebrate World Clubfoot Day and raise awareness of life-changing treatment for clubfoot. It has been great to work together with many dedicated colleagues and supporters to help train more health professionals who can provide life-changing care to children born with clubfoot – we are really excited that many more children will be able to access effective treatment, so that they can walk and lead a normal life.’

Read more here: http://ow.ly/grLH30kicq4

(Image courtesy of CURE Clubfoot)

ACT Train The Trainer Course in Tanzania, April 2018

Last month, we held a regional Africa Clubfoot Training instructor course in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to help train more health professionals across sub-Saharan Africa to treat children born with clubfoot. 65 participants and observers took part in the week, including those involved in supporting clubfoot programmes in Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Liberia, Rwanda, Benin, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Malawi, Nicaragua and Burundi. It was a great week, consisting of a 2-day train the trainer course for 18 participants, followed by a 2-day basic clubfoot treatment provider course and a 1-day advanced non-surgical clubfoot treatment provider course. Practical workshops were held at CCBRT Hospital.

We are very grateful for the fantastic training team (Nick Veltjens, Michiel Steenbeek, Henry Musoke, Ryan Bathurst, Isidor Ngayomela, Emmanuel Kowero, Denise Watson, Tracey Smythe and Guy Atherton) and to the hospitals and clubfoot organisations whom they represent, and to the local TCCO and CCBRT staff and organisers.

The course was generously co-funded by MiracleFeet and the OxReach Africa Clubfoot Training crowdfunding campaign supporters, including University of Oxford, CURE Clubfoot and Global Clubfoot Initiative.

Read more here!

MiracleFeet article:

https://www.miraclefeet.org/2018/04/26/africa-clubfoot-training-program-empowers-ponseti-providers/

Tanzania Clubfoot Care Organisation (TCCO) article:

http://clubfoottanzania.org/1026-2/

We have now completed the French translations of the Africa Clubfoot Training course! These versions of the ACT Basic Clubfoot Treatment and Advanced Non-Surgical Clubfoot Treatment Course materials are available through Global Clubfoot Initiative - http://globalclubfoot.com/

Dr Henry Ndasi used the new translated materials to run a Basic Clubfoot Treatment Provider Course last week through the Cameroon Clubfoot Care programme, supported by CBM.

The roll-out of the Africa Clubfoot Training course continues – here are some more photos from recent training courses from our partners using the Africa Clubfoot Training course materials:

( © Photos below are courtesy of CURE Clubfoot)

Burundi, June 2017

DRC, June 2017

Kenya, May 2017

Rwanda, May 2017

Togo, June 2017

Malawi, June 2017

It’s been an exciting week as have we run our first Africa Clubfoot Training course with the full set of completed new teaching materials! In fact, it's been a truly international course, with colleagues joining us from clubfoot programmes in Uganda, Guinea Bissau, Tanzania, Cameroon, South Africa,  Bangladesh, India, Mexico, Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Honduras, thanks to combined support and co-funding from the ACT campaign, CURE Clubfoot, Miraclefeet, CBM, Steps SA and Walk for Life, UK Clubfoot Consensus Group and other Global Clubfoot Initiative partners.It’s been a fantastic opportunity to train new clubfoot instructors who lead training in programmes in Africa, Asia, Latin America and UK, to train UK clubfoot treatment providers, discuss management of complex cases, and collaborate on further roll-out of clubfoot training internationally. It was a privilege to have Prof Fred Dietz, who worked with Dr Ponseti for much of his career, as part of the international course faculty. Here are some of the highlights: Many thanks to all the wonderful trainers who generously gave their time to participate, teach and mentor on this course, and once again thank you to all who have supported the ACT project - we are seeing the benefits for not only clubfoot training in Africa, but many other countries too! The next Africa Clubfoot Training course is scheduled to be held in Tanzania in 2018, to train new instructors from across sub-Saharan Africa.

We celebrated World Clubfoot Day on 3 June with ACT project partners around the world. The day also marked the launch of a major call to action by the many clubfoot organizations represented by our partner, Global Clubfoot Initiative: “Run Free 2030: A Global Strategy to End Clubfoot Disability” .

It's been great to see instructors trained through the ACT phase 1 project go on to lead clubfoot training courses in Madagascar, Rwanda and Zambia in recent months:

(Dr Vuhaka teaching in Madagascar and Dr Lastroni teaching in Zambia)

The ACT training course supported by the crowdfunding campaign that was originally scheduled for May 2017 will now take place in September to enable more trainers and clubfoot organizations to participate - we are looking forward to it!

Hello,

Our ACT project training team visited Kenya in January 2017 to deliver an advanced clubfoot training course for Kenyan health workers from clinics in and around Nairobi. The practitioners learned about treatment for more challenging cases of clubfoot. Many thanks to Denise Watson, Linda Hansen, Ros Owen, Paul Mang'oli and Guy Atherton for leading this.

Our first ACT train the trainers course supported by the OxReach campaign is planned for May 2017, where we will present the completed version of the new package of training materials that have been developed over the past two years. We’ll be joined by several clubfoot organizations working in the region, so that we can work together towards scaling up training in the region using the new resources.

More updates to follow!

Best wishes,

Grace Le, on behalf of the ACT Team

clubfoot@ndorms.ox.ac.uk

Our new online giving page on is:

https://www.campaign.ox.ac.uk/africa-clubfoot

Happy New Year!

We are delighted that we raised over £80,000 for the Africa Clubfoot Training Project through our crowdfunding campaign. It was wonderful to receive so much outstanding support and many encouraging messages from all over the world. Thank you so much to everyone who helped us to raise these funds through sharing about this work and generously giving towards helping children with clubfoot – we couldn’t have done this without you.

We’re very much looking forward to working with our project partners to plan our next clubfoot training event in Africa using funds raised through this campaign - and we will continue to post updates on this page.

Thank you once again for all the fantastic support!

Kind regards,

Chris Lavy

On behalf of the ACT Team

We’ve reached £50,000 in our campaign!

Here’s a video thank you message on Twitter

A message from Karen Moss, founder and director of STEPS Southern Africa

"As the mother of a child born with clubfoot almost fourteen years ago, I know that the Ponseti Method can change lives. It is not only the most effective treatment available but it can be successfully set up with low resources. The Ponseti method is my passion, and the more children it can reach, the better. I work in Southern Africa to increase capacity for treatment and I know it is vital to train more people on the continent to reach these children. I have personally experienced the dedication of this team and you have my full support for this project. “

Listen to some feedback from our first Francophone Africa Clubfoot Training course a few weeks’ ago (… in French!) on Twitter here

    .... 4 days to go!

We are excited to be over halfway towards our minimum target of £70,000! 

The Oxford Mail ran an article on our clubfoot visitor event at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre last week - full article here .

(The Oxford Mail, 18 Nov 2016, photo by Richard Cave)

Dr. Paul Mang’oli is an orthopaedic surgeon at the AIC-CURE Children's Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya. He has both attended and taught on our clubfoot courses in Ethiopia this year. He explains:

“In Kenya the incidence of clubfoot is about 1:1000, with about 1400 children born with idiopathic clubfoot every year. Unfortunately, many of these children undergo minimal to no treatment, thus resulting in disability in their later lives. This is largely due to a lack of trained personnel competent in managing clubfoot.

I'm fortunate to be one of the few trained personnel in the proper Ponseti management of clubfoot, courtesy of the Africa Clubfoot Training project.  The training had a great impact in my management of clubfoot as well as making me a resource person to other medical professionals.

With the high incidence affecting Kenya and Africa as a whole, more training needs to be conducted so as to reach out to as many of these children as possible. 

Left untreated, clubfoot leads to a lifetime disability, with the affected people experiencing pain and difficulty in walking. These people also find it difficult to access education, employment and experience exclusion from society.

Therefore, we do appeal to well-wishers to support this noble process of training which will go a long way in reducing disability from clubfoot.”

Thank you once again for your support - please do keep on sharing our message!

Today we've received a moving message from Hilary, one of our supporters:

"I was born with clubfoot affecting both of my feet but the right foot was markedly worse than the left. I was fortunate to be born in a country where treatment is available and action was taken from birth to begin a process to correct my condition so that I would be able to walk normally. I have always been aware that without the treatments I received my life would have been very different. I would have been substantially disabled and possibly unable to walk or barely so.

Because of my treatment I was able to participate normally in school, enjoy sports, though not excel in them, climb mountains, count hiking as one of my hobbies, and enjoy dancing. I also love gardening and have been able to do home decorating, my own housework and stand many hours to cook countless meals. All these normal activities might have been almost impossible without the early treatment I received for my feet.

To give training to doctors to train others in providing the Ponseti treatment for clubfoot is life changing for thousands of children and it is so very sad that there are still places in the world where the expertise to provide this treatment is not yet available.

The Africa Clubfoot Training Project seeks to rectify that situation in Africa and is able to make the world of difference for children born with clubfoot if enough money can be raised to launch it. Please consider making a contribution to help them do it"

Hello everyone

 Thank you for your support so far!  Here’s a quick update on our week 1:

We held a cake sale at NDORMS, and raised £270 for the campaign. Around 50 researchers gathered to hear about our clubfoot training work in Africa, over cake and a good chat.

We are now featured on the Oxford University homepage!

On Wednesday 16 November, we are holding a visitor event at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, where our team will be available to demonstrate how clubfoot is treated and talk about our work.

Local organisations and businesses in Headington, Oxford, are showing their support too and have donated lots of great prizes for our upcoming raffle, including Oxford United Football Club who are giving us match-day tickets.  

Thank you very much to all our supporters who’ve helped us reach over £13,000 in just the first few days of the campaign, including C-Pro Direct, CURE International UK, and Medical Aid International! We’re delighted to be on our way towards helping more children with clubfoot to walk.

We would be very grateful if you could continue to share about the project  https://spsr.me/Eh2E  – the more people who hear about it, the better!

If you are in the area, please also visit us to hear more about our clubfoot training work in Africa – we would love to meet you.

Wednesday 16 November 2016, 10am – 3pm

Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Windmill Road, Oxford, OX3 7HE

Our team will be in the main atrium to talk to visitors about the project.

Best wishes,

Chris Lavy