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 POF is excited to announce that the Makeni Rehabilitation Center has begun Mobile Outreach Operations to rural areas of Northern Sierra Leone.
 With the arrival of the new outreach vehicle in February, a Toyota Land Cruiser funded during the 2006 POF Auction, the staff of the new Makeni Rehabilitation Center was able to begin preparations for the first mobile outreach trip to the area of Kamakwie, north of Makeni.
Cooperating with the local network of Chiefdoms and community radio stations, they spread the word that the Outreach Team would be coming to Kamakwie to evaluate and cast amputees for artificial limbs.
In mid May, the team traveled the difficult roads to Kamakwie, where they took measurements and casts of 5 lower limb amputees. The amputees were reportedly glad to finally receive prosthetic care, previously unavailable in Kamakwie, and were excited to hear that they would soon be getting new limbs.
 After completing the casting, the team returned to the Makeni Center, where they fabricated the limbs. In early June, the outreach team returned to Kamakwie, where they fitted the new legs and began casting upper limb amputees in that region.
 In June, retired prosthetist and POF Technical Consultant, Loren Ceder, traveled to Sierra Leone to observe outreach operations and to provide technical assistance to the Makeni Center. Mr. Ceder traveled with the team to the Kabala area, northeast of Makeni, where an additional 6 amputees were cast.
As outreach continues, the Makeni Center staff is looking forward to assisting more amputees in the region. Based on the initial number of amputees registered in the northern Districts of Bombali and Koinadugu, POF estimates that over 1500 amputees are living in Sierra Leone’s Northern Region, most without access to adequate prosthetic care.
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