January 20, 2011
BYU Student Trains El Salvadorans to Make Inexpensive Prosthetics
Mechanical engineering student David Williams has his hands full—and then there are the legs.
Not only is Williams also pursuing a minor in business management, he’s serving as student council president of the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology and leading BYU’s Prosthetic Leg Project group in designing a low-cost, below-the-knee prosthetic.
The device—a mentored-learning project—was presented at several conferences and won last year’s BYU Social Venture Competition. This summer Williams traveled to El Salvador to train locals on making the prosthetics.
The BYU-designed prosthetic leg costs less than $20 to manufacture and demonstrated to Williams the truth that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. “Simple things like PVC pipe, pop bottles, and scrap cloth can be transformed into a life-changing device,” he says.
“Without the kind donations that were given to our team for this mentored project, we would never have been able to complete this,” says Williams to those who support mentoring at BYU.
“Thank you for trusting us. There are many students like me with great aspirations; we simply need help getting started.”
