Sarah Williams
Beaver Staff
While many may be familiar with The War Amps (TWA) logo and ubiquitous key tags, perhaps fewer are aware of the fundamental role this charity plays in bettering the lives of amputees across Canada. Since 1918, when TWA was founded by amputee veterans from WWI, they have been providing support to amputees from amputees.
Importantly, a strong focus of TWA is improving the lives of children through their Child Amputee Program (Champ).
Deseronto’s Hannah Layfield, age 13, has been enrolled in CHAMP since infancy. In speaking with the Beaver, Layfield describes a program that not only helped with the practical aspects of living as an amputee, such as shaking hands or buttoning shirts, but also the less tangible aspects, such as confidence and self esteem.
Prior to the pandemic, Layfield, along with hundreds of other CHAMP participants, would attend yearly seminars. Unfortunately, these have not been held for the last two years.
Layfield’s grandmother, Patti, described the tremendous benefit of these seminars and, subsequently, the void felt from the lack of them.
“She’s been able to, up until now, find a way to do everything she needs to do…but this was the first obstacle for her. Going to the seminars, she saw many children who needed prosthetics to do everything from walking to playing musical instruments or gymnastics,” expressed Patti.
Layfield described deriving a sense of comfort and camaraderie at the seminars, being able to learn from and share experiences with many other children and youth who face similar challenges.
“Hannah was referred as a baby to TWA and started going to seminars in Toronto, Ottawa or Hamilton. They do parades so she was in the Hamilton Santa Claus parade on a float,” said Patti. “They always pay expenses for the families to go to the seminars and that’s where Hannah would get to meet lots of other kids like her and partake in things from self esteem building, how to handle bullies, or overcome little obstacles like doing up buttons.”
While plans are underway to continue the CHAMP seminars, Patti noted these would reportedly be in a different format than prior to the pandemic.
“She feels like they all understand her more than the rest of us can. That’s so important to these kids,” said Patti.
Apart from their seminars, TWA pay for the necessary prosthetics for amputees. These prosthetics can be expensive, ranging in the thousands of dollars. For Layfield, TWA paid for her partial right-hand prosthetic to the tune of $2,700.
Worth noting, pointed out Patti, is that TWA is a charity that relies entirely on donations.
With Layfield’s prosthetic and support from TWA, she has become an avid horseback rider.
“I started horseback riding and was doing it for about a year when I realized I needed help holding the crop,” explained Layfield.
As with other times in her life when being an amputee posed a challenge, TWA was able to guide her through the process of learning to ride with her disability.
TWA offer a variety of programs, from their PLAYSAFE program, designed to help children more aware of the dangers in their environment, to their JUMPSTART program, offering specialized assistance to children with multiple amputations.
For a full list of programs offered by TWA, along with more information about this charity, visit:
https://www.waramps.ca/pdf/english-site/media/quick-facts/CHAMP-quick-facts.pdf
To donate to TWA, visit: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/the-war-amps/