Stand Tall

Today was a great day full of vocational site visits.  It is very apparent that District Governor Nominee Kenneth Wong has worked very hard to ensure a variety of vocational experiences to expose us to many issues that we were curious about, and also some that we were not previously aware of.

Our site visit this afternoon to Prince of Wales Hospital focused on the Stand TALL Program, a humanitarian organization started by Dr. K.M Chan, Chair Professor and Chief of Orthopedics at Prince of Wales Hospital in response to the devestating earthquake in the Sichuan Province in China in May 2008.  This earthquake, measuring a 7.9 on the Richter scale, killed 69,000 people and left an approximately 4.8 million people homeless.

Realizing the extent of suffering of his fellow Chinese people in the Sichuan province, Dr. Chan was able to mobilize the goodwill of the Hong Kong people into Stand TALL, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing state of the art prosthetics and technology to victims of the earthquake who suffered amputations and spinal cord injuries, with a strong emphasis on providing aid to affected children.

Three years later, Stand TALL has evolved into a comprehensive rehabilitation program attending to the physical,  functional, and psychologcal needs of it's patients, as well as an educational program which provides training to Chinese medical students via Tele-education, with the aim of increasing the local orthopedic services in the Sichuan province.

With the support of the Hong Kong people and the local Rotary Clubs of District 3450, this program has not only successfully changed the lives of victims of the earthquake, but is poised to continue its mission of supporting the health and wellbeing of the people of the Sichuan Province for years to come.

Learn more about Stand TALL by visiting their website at http://www.standtallchina.org/

Maria D'Andrea