What is Sandy Galls Afghanistan Appeal?
Sandy Gall the British broadcaster and journalist set up his Appeal in 1983, a year after he made his first television documentary about the resistance of the people of Afghanistan to the Russian invasion. He saw many casualties from bombing and landmines, and also the suffering of the civilian population, forced to take refuge in neighbouring countries. In 1986 the Appeal acquired charitable status and our first expatriate prosthetist/orthotist (maker of artificial limbs) went out to work in a hospital in Peshawar, capital of the North-west Frontier Province of Pakistan, where more than three million Afghan refugees had fled. SGAA’s first aim was to provide high quality artificial limbs for mine victims and to train Afghan technicians to make and fit them. But it soon became clear there were many other disabilities to be treated, as a result of the overcrowded conditions in the refugee camps.
