First assignment of group n° 093
Resources used by the team[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
First description of our project[modifier | modifier le wikicode]
Struggle for the improvement of living conditions of disabled people in disadvantaged areas'
1. What Problem do you want to solve ?
Nowadays, over one billion people live with a disability, which represents about 15% of the world population. The majority of disabled people live in developing countries. In these countries the economic and social situation stays very uncertain.
The problem we want to solve is the difficulty of access to medical equipment for disabled persons in insecure areas affected by war or poverty.
Substantial health care disparities for persons with disabilities outcomes from principal structural problems with the delivery of healthcare, including medical providers’ insufficient knowledge about disability competency and awareness.
That’s why we may need to think about this issue and then to develop solutions to support those people. They’re suffering from a health problems on the one hand, and on the other from the precariousness of their countries.
Thus, helping this growing community becomes inevitable to keeping them completely apart to the society equally with the others citizens. We want to provide an innovative way to bring medical supplies to them.
2. Why does this problem exist?
There is more than 15 countries involved in wars, representing more than 1 million victim/year and most of the victim who aren’t kill by war became disabled. According to World Health Organization, about 1 billion people, 15% of the world’s population, are disabled.
There are around 100 million people living with disabilities in developing countries. Only 2 % of the disabled people, in developing countries, have access to the rehabilitation and to the appropriate basic services. The results of the health survey in the world indicate a higher prevalence in low income countries than in high-income countries. 20% of the poorest people in developing countries live with handicap.
First, in a war context, survive and find the necessary medical care is a constant anxiety for the injured and sick persons and especially for disabled one. Furthermore, the demand for care has increased sharply, and the offer was reduced because of destroyed or damaged health infrastructure and because of the fleeing of the health personnel from the combat zones. And even if they exist in poor countries, these infrastructures are inefficient and unreliable. The services are fragmented, under-funded and do not respond efficiently to the needs of the population.
Unfortunately, the future prospect isn’t good enough, conflict are about to continue, like in Ukraine, Syria, or the war against DAESH. Help the victims is one of the first goal. According to the estimations, between 281,7 million and 608,4 million people in the world are handicapped, with the majority living in developing countries.
Moreover, the international associations don’t have enough time and money to resolve all problems. For instance, “handicap international” is working in 57 countries and most of them really need more help. And these needs get increase the more that we have some long conflicts like in Syria.
3. What breakthrough are you committed to creating?
As said previously, they are many disabled people in poorer countries and these people, unfortunately, have very little access to medical equipment.
The aim of our problematic is to provide a help to the associations which have some difficulties to help all disabled persons. In fact, in 2014, Handicap international has decided to develop a new activity which gave some information about the risk of explosion because of the war (about 85 000 people who have been informed).
But the problem is the high cost of the medical stuff and the difficulty to carry it in a war landscape.
In order to try to help these people, our breakthrough would be to create a medical equipment whose manufacture would be with kits. The elaboration of this new kind of medical stuff will be done with sustainable materials found in those areas.
In fact, our challenge would be to create an equipment at a lower price than the usual one. Thanks to this new way, our goal can be achieved. But however a lower price doesn’t necessary means a lower quality. We want to guarantee a better accessibility (In 2014, only 25 774 have received a rehabilitation in Africa), without reducing the quality. Indeed, having lower price is not enough, since it must also be resistant and quite robust in order to last for a long time.
Nowadays, a medical equipment costs too much to the association. So our kit would be a huge saving for them. Moreover, “Handicap international” spends about 31% of its budget by sending some medical stuffs in the south. So if we could suggest an economic way to do the same result, it could be great. It will be an important breakthrough for the international community at the end.
Finally, using sustainable and recyclable equipment to create this would also be a challenge for everybody. This challenge would allow local people to increase their chances to be integrated, to find a job and to go to school.
Potential experts already identified
| Experts | Speciality | Email/Adress | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sabine Mesnier | Program manager at ES-KO | NC | 06 43 91 41 97 |
| Handicap International | Association | 138, avenue des Frères Lumière 69008 Lyon - France | NC |
| Pasolo | Medical material Supplier | ergo@pasolo.com | NC |
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