NLR’s work on assistive technology

‘These shoes are made for walking’, an NLR and Liliane Foundation project, helps to train more orthopaedic shoemakers in Southeast Asia.

Hoa Pham, a Vietnamese orthopaedic technologist, helped to train students from various Southeast Asian countries to become orthopaedic shoemakers. After their graduation, the students started working in their own countries. NLR and the Liliane Foundation used their existing network to get them started. By working together with existing orthopaedic and rehabilitation centres in Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, they will start building a network of orthopaedic shoemakers throughout Southeast Asia.

The aim was to make orthopaedics accessible for people who need them. Especially children with spasticity, clubfeet or polio and people who are affected by leprosy, lymphatic filariasis or diabetes.