The Enevra ("En­able every am­pu­tee") pro­ject is de­di­ca­ted to pro­vi­ding dis­abled peo­ple with pro­sthes­es that are produ­ced lo­cal­ly us­ing 3D prin­ting. To this ob­jec­ti­ve, stu­den­ts from RWTH uni­ver­sity (En­ac­tus Aachen) are con­duc­­ting a pro­ject fea­si­bi­lity study at the CorSu Re­ha­bil­ita­tion Hos­pital in Ki­su­bi (Ugan­da) with our sup­port in 2022.

Initally, stu­dents will in­stall a 3D prin­ter and will be train­ing staff at the hos­pi­tal. During the pi­lot phase, the first pa­tients will be fit­ted with prin­ted pros­thes­es. The fo­cus is on sim­ple, low-cost hand pro­sthe­ses. These have an en­tire­ly  aes­thetic func­tion and may help to alle­viate so­ci­al stig­ma­tiza­tion.

The pro­ject objec­tive is to ev­al­ua­te the pre­re­quisi­tes, op­por­tuni­ties, ob­stac­les and syn­ergy ef­fects for the fu­ture im­ple­me­nta­tion of the En­evra pro­ject in Uga­nda. The ex­per­ience and im­pro­vis­ation­al skills of the local pro­sthe­sis ma­nu­fac­tur­ers will be no­ted and may also be in­cluded.

The long-term goal is to ach­ieve self-­suf­fic­iency with affor­dab­le pro­sthe­ses through local par­tn­ers. The tech­ni­cal up­gra­de with joints for thumbs or el­bows can also be re­alis­ed in the fut­ure.