We fit the limb, teach people to use it, and stay with them afterwards.

The Syrian Limb Initiative is a foundation building rehabilitation centres inside Syria for people wounded in the war. Prosthetic limbs, physical therapy and occupational therapy, at no cost to the patient.

What we do

A limb on its own is not enough. Most prostheses that get abandoned are abandoned because nobody was there for the part that comes after the fitting. We do all four of these, or we are not finished.

Prosthetic limbs

Measurement, casting, and a socket shaped to one particular limb. Then the adjustments, because a first fit is never the final one. Repairs and replacement sockets stay free for as long as they are needed, and children are re-fitted as they grow.

Physical therapy

Standing, balance, and walking. Learning to trust a new leg on stairs, on gravel, on a slope. Strengthening muscles that have not carried weight since the injury, and treating the pain that comes with them.

Occupational therapy

The ordinary things: dressing, cooking, writing, carrying a child, driving, going back to a job or a classroom. A limb only matters once someone can build a life around it.

Sourcing the components

Feet, knees, liners and adapters are the largest cost in every prosthesis. SLI negotiates directly with international manufacturers rather than buying through intermediaries, so that the parts arrive at a price that keeps the care free.

The person who started it

Ahmad, founder of the Syrian Limb Initiative — Ahmad — founder, Syrian Limb Initiative

Ahmad was born in Syria. When he was six years old a bomb struck his family's tent. It killed his siblings and left him critically injured.

He was treated in Turkey, and then in the United States. He finished high school a year early with a near-perfect SAT score, and went on to Northeastern University.

He studies biomedical and biomolecular engineering there on a pre-medical track, concentrating on radiology and neuroradiology — the reading and analysis of brain imaging. He has also built a device that lets people monitor their health at home.

He founded the Syrian Limb Initiative to build that kind of care inside Syria, where most of the people who need it are, and where almost none of it reaches them. The plan is a network of centres across the country offering prosthetics, physical therapy and occupational therapy, supplied through agreements negotiated directly with international manufacturers.

He speaks English, Arabic and Spanish.

Where we are going

A permanent centre in each of Syria's fourteen governorates, supported by mobile teams for villages and for patients who cannot travel. Nobody should have to cross the country on one leg to be measured for the other.