Talent is defined as a natural skill or aptitude to do something. However sometimes talent is learnt and mastered overtime.
Collin Charles is one such person who aptly fits into the latter category.
For the past 20 years he has been utilising a learnt talent to help to make other people’s life better.
Charles is a Senior Prosthetic Technician. This simply means that he has the skills to use his hands to build artifical limbs for persons who would have lost theirs by way of accident, amputation or other means.
Charles’ talent also includes helping to create orthotic devices that help to correct defects that may hinder the proper walking function of the human feet.
And age does not matter, as according to Charles, “we can help and old person who might have been in an accident and lost a leg and we can adjust limbs or devices for a growing child.”
According to Charles once an individual, young or old, would have undergone therapy and is found to be suitable for a device this is immediately done complete with training to utilise same.
Charles with the support of other technicians, on a daily basis, execute such talent at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre’s National Orthotic and Prosthetic Appliance Workshop. The Centre is located at 132-133 Carmichael Street, Georgetown.
According to Charles, the Centre is able to produce about 15 appliances per month but the demand sometimes increases. “We always try to meet the demand, that is what we do work to help people get back on their feet,” said Charles of the work of the workshop he has diligently offered his acquired talent to over the years.