As the rollout of our new mobile app CAST continues in MiracleFeet programs across the world, we’re working to make sure providers using the app throughout Francophone and West Africa have access to the training and support they need.

Enter Andrianina Andriambinintsoa, CAST Support Specialist.

Andrianina has been providing Ponseti treatment to children born with clubfoot in his home country of Madagascar since 2015, when he received training through Mercy Ships. In 2017, he became Technical Director of the Madagascar clubfoot program, bringing his experience to the nationwide cause of ending clubfoot disability.

Clubfoot had an impact on Andrianina long before 2015, however. When he was a child, Andrianina’s family lived next door to an adult man who had neglected clubfoot. The man had been rejected by his family because of his disability and suffered from alcoholism as a result of the isolation and stigmatization.

The memory of his neighbor stayed with Andrianina, although he did not encounter anyone else with clubfoot until after completing nursing school years later. At that time, children coming to the Tamatave clinic where Andrianina was interning were being treated for clubfoot with traditional methods.

Andrianina knew these methods would not yield the long-term results that the Ponseti method does, and when Mercy Ships came to Madagascar in 2015, he enthusiastically volunteered his time as a translator in the clinic. It was then that he learned the Ponseti method, and he has been a champion for children born with clubfoot throughout Madagascar, and Africa, since then.

In his role as CAST Support Specialist, Andrianina will be able to share his passion and expertise with providers throughout the continent, supporting them in using the CAST mobile app. He will oversee data collection and help providers with day-to-day troubleshooting.

“CAST has really helped to improve treatment quality,” he says. Providers are better able to keep track of missed appointments and follow up with parents immediately. Andrianina thinks the difference is noticeable already and is excited by the prospect of continuing to improve the treatment process for children born with clubfoot.

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