Helping Hand Program For Victims Of Landmine Amputees

On Thursday May 17th, 2018, 33 of our storage experts gathered together to create something magical. We personally hand built 10 prosthetic hands for victims of landmine amputees throughout developing countries. The atmosphere was electric as our team struggled putting together the intricate pieces with their own personal dominate hand disabled. Working with one hand was categorically challenging but gave our team a slight insight into the struggles amputees face doing the simplest of tasks every day.

There are 100 million active landmines in 60 countries with 2,000 landmine accidents each month or one every 20 minutes which equates to 24 in an 8-hour working day, and 75% of these have at least one amputation. Sadly, there is approximately 25,000 – 50,000 children without hands as traditional cost of a prosthetic in developing countries costing $3000 each which is simply unaffordable. Helping Hands is a magnificent initiative bringing much need help and hope to many struggling families and communities.

While Fort Knox paid for the prosthetic limbs, equipment and facilitator our team provided the enthusiasm and did the hard work. Each person embraced the opportunity to spare a few hours of their time to individually hand build something that will be life changing and will offer long term improvements to the quality of a person’s life whom ordinarily couldn’t afford it.

We are so proud of the ongoing voluntary and community work that our team of Storage Experts engage in. Our team encompasses a group of people with genuine empathy for others and they continue to amaze us with their passion to helping families around the world and making positive changes for the wider community.

At the conclusion of assembling the 10 hands the teams tested the mechanics to ensure they were safe and operational, it was a humbling achievement. Each team then creatively decorated a case for the prosthetics to be delivered to recipients. As many recipients don’t speak English the teams used pictures to show their support and love in being able to make their life just a little bit easier. We also wrote letters to be delivered and read to the amputees with our names and personal messages.

The flow on effect from this event has proven to be one of the most emotional and heart-warming activities we have engaged in. In reflection of what we achieved the team sat in silence to watch real life footage of previous amputees getting their hands, and there weren’t many dry eyes in the room.

If you are looking for a team building activity that really benefits others, then we highly recommend Beyond the Boardroom and their Helping Hands experience.

For more information on beyond the boardroom helping hands activity; http://helpinghandsprogram.com.au/

Photos:

• Our team of storage experts proudly showing their prosthetic hands ready for distribution (top)
• 3 of our storage experts working collectively to assemble a hand (middle)
• Some of our team assembling the parts with their dominate hand covered (bottom)