In an interview with the BBC on Monday April 1, Tom Williams of Legs4Africa project said: “We’ve been collecting these prosthetic legs for the last 12 months from charities across the UK. Having prosthetic legs built cost around 5 to 15 thousand British pounds.
“Those amputees in The Gambia don’t really have the funding for new ones. So we send out these redundant prosthetic legs from here and customised them to be reused over there.”
The Legs4Africa project came about when Tom Williams made a visit to the country, three years ago, as a tourist.
“We have a wonderful family there,” Tom explained. “The head of that family lost his leg through diabetes. And we could see firsthand how debilitating that was for everyone. We found him a new prosthetic leg. Since then, our cause has grown from that one leg to a van full of 500 prosthetic legs. So these legs are going to be donated to the EFSTH where there’s real need because of the problem of diabetes and landmines.”
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