10,000 Laughs is very proud this year to partner with the Protez Foundation. What do they do? In the simplest terms, they provide prosthetics to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. That doesn’t quite do their work justice, so we’ll let them describe it:
”We founded Protez Foundation in May of last year, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, with the goal to provide amputee soldiers with comprehensive rehabilitation services, which include travel from Ukraine to the US and back, state-of-the-art prosthetic devices and their highly personalized installation, physical therapy and psychological support, accommodation and meals during their 3-4 week long stay in our center in Minnesota and subsequent follow up in Svalyava (Ukraine) - all of which is absolutely free to Ukrainian soldiers, civilians and children who lost limbs during the war.
Crucially, during their stay in the US, soldiers are surrounded by love, energy and support of the Ukrainian community in Minnesota and around the U.S. Our patients have been warmly welcomed and honored by communities in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, Charleston, Greenville and Sacramento.
As a result, after completing our program, soldiers return to Ukraine not only fit with modern prosthetics, but also truly invigorated, ready to live full lives, defend and rebuild Ukraine. Some soldiers who received prosthetics from Protez have even returned to the battle lines.
To date we have helped 98 Ukrainians including 3 children, providing them with more than 260 prosthetic devices. We have become the largest private center in the world for providing prosthetics to Ukrainians.
Protez Foundation was featured in an article in The New York Times on March 24,2023, as well as in other media.
We run a very lean and cost-efficient operation; our administrative overhead ratio is only 8%. We rely on an extensive network of hundreds of local volunteers in the Twin Cities – they prepare food, help with cleaning and laundry services, assist with prosthetics fitting and rehabilitation, transportation and organize various activities for soldiers. If you'd like to sign up as a volunteer - send us an email at info@protezfoudnation.com
Where we need help is procurement of prosthetics, special materials, travel, and rehabilitation, which cost on average around $21,000 per soldier depending on number of limbs and complexity.
Protez Foundation has received 1100 applications, but the real need is much larger. There are about fifty thousand (50,000) people in Ukraine in need of prosthetics.
Due to this significant unmet need we urgently require more ways to provide prosthetic care to Ukrainians, so we are expanding to education:
The Protez Academy is an educational program by the Protez Foundation which is open for Ukrainian prosthetists and technicians, physical therapists, occupational therapists and surgeons. After completion of the 3-4 week crash course, specialists will learn modern approaches in evaluation, casting, fabrication and rehabilitation. Those new skills will allow them to make the prosthetics much faster (days instead of weeks), improve patient satisfaction and significantly reduce the rehabilitation time and number of follow ups.
As of today, we received zero dollars from government and everything we have done was funded by charities and individual donors like you. ”
During 10,000 Laughs we’ll be collecting donations to Protez along with our ticketing - and via the donation page on their website. Protez does amazing work here in the Twin Cities and we’re proud to support them.
