Photo: Yuri Lee
In Vietnam I worked on ethnographical research. My role was to get to know the people based on interviews conducted with them as well as observations. Despite not knowing the Vietnamese language (worked with translators) I was able to learn a lot about people with amputations, their experiences with limb loss, their prosthetic history but also their characters. We worked with patients in the hospital as well as visited them at their homes to get to know them better.
Questionnaires were the base for the conversation but we always learned more.
We visited hospitals, clinics as well as rehab centers. Talking with people was eyeopening - the boy on the photo was about to go back to school after months spent in rehab center after being fitted with leg thanks to the ICRC. He wanted to stay in the hospital where he and several other men shared one room for the time of the rehab. Among them he felt normal, when at school he is going to be the one with the artificial leg.
Part of Penta mission involves organizing volunteer program for local high school students to educate them about the issues related to disability and encouraging them to take action.
Photo: Yuri Lee
Plans for future: Prosthetic program for Vietnam.