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Jaipur Foot free camp in city
Highlights
Jaipur Foot free camp in city. Two years ago, Wajid Miya was boarding a train when the crowd pushed him onto the tracks and he was run over. The doctors went in for an amputation of his right leg and also removed three fingers from his left foot.
Two years ago, Wajid Miya was boarding a train when the crowd pushed him onto the tracks and he was run over. The doctors went in for an amputation of his right leg and also removed three fingers from his left foot. He was fitted with an artificial limb, got meals and rudimentary therapy, all free of cost on Thursday at the Victory Playground, Chaderghat. Hobbling on a walker with the help of the just fixed ‘Jaipur Foot’ he now plans to get back and start his retail cloth business.
The camp at Victory Playground Chaderghat was inaugurated on Thursday and will be on till February 2 between 10 am and 6 pm. “Everything is free here,” says Veena Jain, a member, “but they would need to come early and get themselves registered. It takes three hours to make a leg or a hand and then the group of doctors, volunteers and social workers have to train the patient.”
"The limb is good," the 68-year-old Wajid Miya said, "I feel some pain and it's still difficult to walk on it for more than an hour, but I'm getting used to it."
Wajid Miya is one of the hundreds who arrived with the support of sticks, hobbling on crutches or carried by relatives, a near-biblical scene. For years, Bhagwan Mahavir Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) has been changing lives with the "Jaipur Foot," a low-cost prosthetic device that can be attached to an artificial leg of any length, depending on where the amputation occurred.
“The foot is heavier than many western prosthetics and has no attached shoe, allowing it to work better in any condition like mud or in fields. And its flexibility works with Indian toilets, sitting cross-legged or to bowing in prayer in a temple or mosque,” shared Veena Jain.
One of the most prominent users of Jaipur Foot and a great testimony to its benefits is Sudha Chandran, a professional dancer. She suffered prosthesis after a car accident at a young age of 17. Three years later, she was able to resume dancing with a specially modified version of the device. Her story was made into a film, Nache Mayuri, she herself acting in the main role. Subsequently, she had acted in several Hindi and regional films. She continues to use the same device though she can afford a costlier and more sophisticated device.
The story behind this noble idea of BMVSS can be narrated like a fairytale. Devendra Raj Mehta, a retired civil servant and the charity's founder, got the idea after his leg was broken in 43 places in 1969. His leg was saved, but during his five months of recovery in a hospital, he was struck by how millions of lives were destroyed by amputation.
Six years later, he started Bhagwan Mahavir Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS), the group, which also operates internationally, gets a third of its funding from the Indian government — New Delhi supports projects abroad as part of its ‘soft power’ initiatives — and two-thirds from grants and donations.
Over the past 39 years, “Jaipur Foot” has been one of the reasons why BMVSS has been able to provide limbs to 1.5 million people for free. It has also developed a model that impresses many with its simplicity. “I have always read in management books that the best way to have an efficient operation is to keep it simple. But, as an entrepreneur, I realised it is very tough. But Mehta has done it very successfully,” says Praveen Kankariya, a businessman from America and a donor at BMVSS for the past three years in one of his blogs.
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