New Hands For Flippie

Something tugged at me like robotic fingers pulling my jacket. Lately I happened to see the word Robohand on social media quite often . Bionic or robotic hands and limbs are not exactly revolutionary new technology so I thought it’s one of those “Sponsored Links”. It wasn’t until I saw activist and serial blogger Jeanius aka Jeanette Hess posting a link about Robohands that I decided to look into it. Knowing Jeanette, there is always more to an issue than simply sharing a link. Wanting to take a shortcut, I contacted her and asked her what her involvement with Robohands was.
She coyly said: “Everything you need to know is in my blog”.

Maybe I thought it would be superfluous writing an article about the ordeal of Flippie Engelbrecht as the media coverage has been quite extensive thus far, so I never did. Who thought there would be anything more to write than the story of Flippie’s tragedy and the on-going court case but there it was in her blog post; Robotic Hands for Flippie.

Again I asked her to tell me more about where she fits in and she kept saying if you look, you will find everything you need to know.
I knew I was being baited so first I had to learn what Robohands are. This open source technology was the result of the sheer willpower and determination of Randburg carpenter Richard van As who came up with the invention through necessity when he lost four of his fingers in a workshop accident.

Richard then decided to share his new technology with the rest of the world and provide Robohands and Robofingers free of charge to South Africans, especially young children, who could not afford it. Although being much cheaper than all other robotic limb options, Robohands is still unaffordable to most prospective beneficiaries. It is therefor that a crowd funding scheme has been adopted as the ideal means to foot their bills.

That is the background, but where does Flippie fit into all of this? All newspaper reports I found of Flippie getting his new set of hands were dated after that initial Jeanius blog post which pointed me straight back to her, though most later news reports were not even mentioning her. What was her involvement?

The Power of Women Literally Giving Someone a Hand.
Following the trail and after a whole lot of digging, I came across conversations in her blog and on other open forums including Facebook where Jeanette first mooted the idea of getting a pair of robotic hands for Flippie Engelbrecht.
Having dug up the basic background, Jeanette smilingly confirmed the story.
Being both passionate for their causes, there was no convincing needed for Richard to make Flippie a pair of hands but for that to happen Jeannette had to find a way to get Richard to come to see Flippie in Robertson.

Jeanette then proceeded to put Richard into contact with Carina Papenfus who handles all the legal representation for Flippie and having access to his medical information, she is probably the only person who could facilitate what Richard needed to do.
Still they had to find a way for Richard to get to The Cape.
Jeanette & Carina then teamed up with Gillian Schutte who is a director of Media for Justice and she set out creating an increased awareness of Robohands and Richards willingness to help Flippie and with the help of eager benefactors, Richard will soon fly to Cape Town to meet Flippie and start work on Flippie’s new Robohands.

It would be easy to say that the rest is history, but there are many South Africans who through accidents or birth defects would greatly benefit from the Robohands and Robofingers technology.
To help them, please support the Robohands crowd funding scheme or at the very least share this article on your social media networks so that more people can become aware of and support this awesome new technology.