Earlier this year whilst scanning the BBC news website I came across an article about the Legs4Africa Deliver a Leg scheme. I wasn’t far into the article before I knew we just had to see if we could help!
Fast forward a few months and we can now tell you about our amazing experience working with this brilliant charity.
This summer we partnered with Legs4Africa to deliver prosthetic leg parts to a clinic in Tanzania, meaning while we were flying, our impact was not just a negative one.
This fantastic charity collects prosthetic legs from NHS clinics and individuals, breaks them down (with the help of men in sheds!) and then sends them out to clinics who need the parts in Africa.
Where do we come in? Well, quite simply these leg parts are heavy and shipping is expensive and we had 15 students who weren’t using all of their luggage allowance (we encourage teams to pack light!). Legs4Africa packed up 5 bags of parts, provided all of the documentation needed and our team took them out to Tanzania as part of their checked luggage.
The team arranged to visit the clinic while in Dar Es Salaam and handed over the parts to a representative of the mobility clinic – simple!
Flying is bad for the environment, there is no getting away from that. However, we feel that the benefit students get from our adventures out weighs the negative, and we must do more to ensure our impact is overall a net positive one.
We are doing more to help
We have begun to offset all of our own travel, adults flying with us and all land travel. Projects like this allow us to go the extra mile. Not only are we using our miles in the air for good, we are also helping to save the prosthetic parts from ending up in landfill.
Legs4Africa made this whole process so simple we can’t wait to help again next year with teams heading to Zambia, Ghana and Tanzania.
Going to Africa yourself? Please get in touch with Legs4Africa, even if you can only take 1 bag it all helps. To get in touch and find out more take a look at their website – www.legs4africa.org
Do you know of any other similar social impact projects we can work with around the world? We have several other options in the pipeline, but we’d be happy to hear other ideas.
