The brothers have invented small prostheses that are functional, simple, efficient, adaptable and robust enough to last for a long period of time. They are cheap and made with local materials. In addition, the method of fabrication is easily transferable. In Cambodia, the brothers have learnt to make prostheses from bamboo and actually taught amputees how to build their own prostheses.
This is how the Jamot Centre came to be the national centre for protheses. Three objectives were set out :
- Equipping amputees ;
- Educating prosthetic technicians ;
- Carrying out research into new amputee equipment that Africa desperately needs.
The centre is a place where many research areas are carried out. Today thanks to the centre, additional protheses and orthopaedic shoes have been designed and built.
Thousands of amputee patients can finally live normal lives, including taking up work again.
Cameroon’s national centre has an outreach far beyond the boarders of the African continent. It has become a training centre, where trainees are formed twice a year.
Between 1977 and 1980, seven prostheses centres have been created in the Cameroon by the Brothers, giving 2000 amputees the opportunity to use their limbs again.
First they were asked to come to Chad to provide training sessions on building protheses and then they were called to other regions in Africa, then India, the Philippines, and finally to Latin America; always with the goal before their eyes to teach trainees and to transmit their know-how. Their motto used to be:
“Do, get it done, do with it !”
