Wheelchair Team Heading to the Dominican Republic

After a long, COVID induced hiatus the seating team is dipping a toe back in the water.  Brenda MacAlpine (Team Leader and OT) will be leading a small team of experienced members to the Dominican Republic in partnership with the Walkabout Foundation and our local partner this time is CAID

Walkabout shipped approximately 225 pediatric chairs which are waiting to be fitted! We hope to fit at least 150 in 5 treatment days. CAID has physiotherapists and occupational therapists in-country who are very skilled, but have identified seating education  as a need especially for complex children. We will work alongside them for a week to share knowledge. Brenda and Colleen Hicke developed education sessions on seating and transfers as  requested by CAID staff for an education day. Colleen Hicke will present the sessions and wow them with her clinical knowledge gained over 45 years as a paediatric therapist.

For this trip our technicians are Gilles Boudreau, a legend in the industry now residing in NB working with National Seating and Mobility who has done 7 previous TCHH trips and Gary Schneider from Maximum Healthcare and Mobility in Calgary. Gary is also legendary and has completed 3 trips one of which was a huge distribution in Uganda as the sole tech! What a star!

Both these gentlemen are patient teachers for local staff as we work alongside many and they share their knowledge so willingly.

Colleen Hicke recently retired after 45 years as a pediatric physio and has done many distributions in Haiti and one in Uganda with TCHH. Her skill set is amazing and she is so generous in  sharing her knowledge.

Brenda MacAlpine is a neuro focused OT and has led many TCHH seating teams large and small to Nepal, Uganda, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic.

Seating, positioning and developing local sustainability is our focus.  We hope to have a safe and productive time.  We will be travelling from Oct 1-11.  Watch for posts and follow along on our marvellous adventures!

To those team members who answered the call out to experienced members for this first trip I am sorry I could not take everyone with an interest in helping.  There will be more trips in the future.  To new volunteers who have reached out to me with interest in future trips I have not forgotten you but for our first step back into the world the team had to be an experienced team.

Keep following us and making those awesome comments on Facebook as they encourage us to keep going when we are tired and worn out!