100,000 steps toward a brighter future: MiracleFeet’s journey to end clubfoot

Image © MiracleFeet

When Juan Carlos was born in a small town in Guatemala in 2016, his mother María was unaware that he had clubfoot, a debilitating birth defect that makes walking difficult and painful. But as he grew older and was unable to walk normally, his condition became increasingly apparent. Due to his disability, when he turned five, Juan Carlos couldn’t start primary school like the other children in his community.

Each year, approximately 180,000 children are born with clubfoot around the world, 90 per cent of these in low- and middle-income countries.¹ Like Juan Carlos, many children born with this debilitating condition endure pain, limited mobility, and discrimination. While clubfoot is treatable in most cases, many families, like María’s, struggle to find care.

Consumed with worry, María didn’t know where to turn for help. “For a cold or something like that, you can just go get some medicine,” she remembers thinking. “But for this, there’s nothing you can do to fix it yourself. You need a specialist.”

Fortunately, María had a chance encounter with a kind woman on a bus who recognised Juan Carlos’ condition and directed her to a nearby clinic that treated clubfoot. The clinic is supported by MiracleFeet, a not-for-profit organisation that partners with local healthcare providers worldwide to provide training and materials for the treatment of clubfoot.

With renewed determination, María made many long and challenging journeys back and forth to the clinic, where Juan Carlos received weekly plaster casts before receiving a foot brace to maintain the correction. Today, he is in the final stages of recovery and is a happy child who can walk, run, and play without pain.

Juan Carlos is one of the 13,500 children MiracleFeet and its partners treated for clubfoot in 2024 alone. The organisation also trains healthcare providers to administer the Ponseti method, a highly effective and non-surgical technique considered the gold standard for clubfoot care. With the goal of preventing chronic pain and complications down the line, MiracleFeet also teaches frontline health workers to detect clubfoot at birth, so babies can be referred for early treatment.

2024 was a milestone year for MiracleFeet and partners, as they reached their 100,000th patient with transformative treatment. The organisation also expanded into Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, and Mauritania, and reached more than 50 per cent of children born with clubfoot in nine countries.²

MiracleFeet is on a mission to ensure that no child experiences the pain and stigma of this treatable disability, and remains dedicated to its goal of ensuring that every child born with clubfoot has access to the care they need to thrive. Oak Foundation is proud to have supported MiracleFeet through our Special Interest Programme since the organisation’s founding in 2011.

References:

1: Smythe, T., Rotenberg, S., & Lavy, C. The global birth prevalence of clubfoot: a systematic review and meta-analysis. (2023) eClinicalMedicine, 63, https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37680947/ [accessed 29 January 2025]

2: MiracleFeet, 100,000 Reasons to Smile: MiracleFeet’s 2024 Impact Report (MiracleFeet, 2024) https://www. miraclefeet.org/stories/100000-reasonsto-smile-miraclefeets-2024-impact-report [accessed 29 January 2025].