Oct 24, 2018 | Duane Frost | 609 views
Waterloo Minor Peewee Select Welcomes its 18th Man!
The minor peewee select team has enthusiastically started
fundraising to help a 10 year old Ugandan boy named Meddy have an operation needed to treat his
clubfoot condition. We were matched with Meddy through the "One4Another" program.
We are very excited to have Meddy join our team as our 18th man this season. He has lived his whole life with his condition being untreated. He is one of 10 children who live with both his mother and father who are peasant farmers.
Many people wonder why there are so many children in Uganda with clubfeet. The prevalence of babies born with clubfeet is the same in Uganda as it is in Canada (1:1000). The key difference is that in Canada our babies are treated as soon as they are born through castings and braces alone. They have corrected feet before they are even able to walk.
Families in Uganda cannot afford medical services and therefore, children are left to live with the disability. Once a child gets older, if not treated, their ankle and foot bones are rigid in their deformity which is why Meddy now requires an operation to be able to correct his foot position. Clubfoot causes the foot to turn inward and roll over so that the child walks on what is essentially the outside and top of the foot. This leads to a life of disability and pain when walking.
We cannot wait to share more pictures of Meddy's progress throughout the season ahead.