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Junk turns golden in Latin America

Locals asked to donate old physiotherapy equipment Ever wondered what to do with an old knee brace or wooden crutches circa 1979 that have been stuffed into the depths of a dark basement? "This town must have thousands of old braces, crutches an

Locals asked to donate old physiotherapy equipment

Ever wondered what to do with an old knee brace or wooden crutches circa 1979 that have been stuffed into the depths of a dark basement?

"This town must have thousands of old braces, crutches and stationary bikes and tread mills just moulding away in crawl spaces, never to be used again," said local physiotherapist Susie Mortensen.

But now she is breathing new life into old equipment.

Mortensen is urging people into their basements and crawl spaces to dig out their used physiotherapy gear and bring it into one of her three clinics in town over the next few weeks.

"Our junk is somebody else’s gold," she said.

Those old Whistler crutches and braces will make their way to primitive hospitals and clinics in Latin America where they are worth their weight in gold.

Another bonus, she adds, is keeping the old equipment out of the Whistler landfill, making us more sustainable.

Founder of the Latin American Development Society, Bayron Figueroa has seen first hand the rippling effects of Canadian aid.

This summer he returned to Guatemala after 20 years in exile.

There, the fruits of his labour in Canada, which involved years of raising money and finding goods, were dotted throughout the countryside.

It was evident in a northern community where a little boy was sporting a worn and faded T-shirt with Victoria, Canada splashed across the front.

At a northern medical post there were dressings for wounds that had come via a Canadian container about four years ago.

And at a tuberculosis hospital in Quetzaltenango, the second largest city in the country where there were 22 patients in one room, he saw three "new" beds from a B.C. hospital. Those beds were obsolete in Canada, forgotten and stuffed away in a basement until Figueroa heard about them.

"(The aid) doesn’t just go into oblivion," he said on his return home.

As a founder of LADS Figueroa has been putting shipment containers together for the past 14 years.

He collects enough stuff to fill three containers each year with goods totalling over half a million dollars in every container. Each container costs about $15,000 to send.

He accepts everything "from a needle to a submarine" with a focus on hospital and clinical supplies.

"For every 38,000 of the population there is one hospital bed (in Guatemala)," he said.

His return after 20 years was bittersweet.

As the plane flew over Guatemala City the memories came flooding back – memories of poverty, of corruption at the highest levels, of terror on the streets.

"Once we dreamed of taking over that city and changing the country," he said.

"When the plane touched down it was a sad thing."

He remembered fleeing from the police as a young university student in 1982.

"Being a youth (at the time) was a big crime in Guatemala," he said.

"Being a student was a double crime."

He had planned to meet his sister who was to give him a new pair of boots on that December day in 1982 but he didn’t have enough time.

On his return he was reunited with his sisters.

"Somehow they survived," he said, despite the harsh and corrupt regime.

He also had the chance to visit much of the country with his teenage son.

The divide between the rich and the poor is growing and the living conditions are getting worse he said, especially for the majority of the population who are of Mayan descent.

The Mayan people are also faced with discrimination in society.

"The splendour of the Mayan culture is not there at the moment. People want to make you think that it has disappeared," he said.

In spite of this the women are battling to keep their rich culture alive with each new generation.

They prefer LADS not send western adult clothing so that they can encourage people to wear the traditional dress, which is full of colour and stories.

They are scared that their traditional way of dressing, which for females denotes a family history along with which village and province they are from, is dying out.

"Women struggle very hard to keep their traditions," said Figueroa.

"Sometimes we want to send clothing with the humanitarian aid but they don’t want that because they want to keep their culture."

They do appreciate children’s clothing so that their kids can stay warm.

For the Whistler drive however, Mortensen is very specific on what she wants dropped off at her clinics.

She is focusing on old physio equipment that is clean and in good shape.

This drive is giving people an outlet to get rid of things that would most likely end up in the garbage or at the Re-Use It Centre.

"We are in Whistler, in the land of the plenty," she said.

"You don’t know what to do with the stuff and it’s too good to throw away."

She collected a truck full of supplies earlier this summer with a few simple phone calls and a little digging.

Some of that stuff has already made its way to a clinic in Cuba.

"The response I got was so positive," she said.

"If we can make that big a difference with so little effort, it would be a crime not to follow through."

The trip to his homeland has also renewed a sense of purpose in Figueroa.

"I had to confront what I left," he said.

He was hoping to find that link between his past and what is going on in Guatemala at the present time.

What he discovered was that his purpose is living and working in Canada where he counsels Latin American immigrants living with AIDS and HIV in Vancouver’s downtown eastside and devoting his time, money and energy to improving things in Latin America.

"I went just to get more vitamins of energy," he joked.

"My hope is to get more support from people here."

There will be boxes for the physio equipment at Whistler Physio in the Marketplace and Creekside as well as at Advanced Sports Therapy for the next few weeks.

For people willing to donate more, call Shayna Hornstein at 604-731-4076.

LADS is always looking for bandages, needles, support braces, crutches, wheelchairs and walkers, among many other things.