What our Youth helping Youth Disability Program is about

Everytime we run a session we are never quite sure how its going to go, but everytime, kids keep stepping up

Thanks to everyone involved over the last year we have been able to grow the sessions from a one off idea supported by Youth week into a regular option for kids with Disabilities (supported by Lotteries and Tu Manawa) to attend.

We want to share with you all the outcome of what these kids do and can achieve

At our first session I met a young teenage boy with cerebral palsy, who utilises a walker to get around, and has difficulties with managing his limbs and endurance, as it takes a phenomenal amount of strength and will power to get around. A young Vibrant man, full of positivity. At that first meeting I told him if he keeps coming along we would get him to the top of a wall.

he told me then and there that he would get to the top

Every session he has turned up, with a grin on his face and determination to get a little bit higher, to do a little bit more. 

Every session the kids get involved, work together with him, and slowly inch by inch they got a little higher. 

Then one day an amazing thing happened, he with the support of the kids topped his first climb, got to do the hanging victory dance, a moment of share run and pleasure to celebrate topping your first climb. 

Between him and the kids they each pushed themselves working together, leaning on each other, supporting each other, utilising all the strength and skill they had, and as a collective,  this young man achieved his goal and made it to the top of a climb. One climber, four kids supporting, a community working together.

The look of share overwhelming pride and pleasure on this young mans face was only mirrored by those kids who were there beside him. Pride, courage, exhaustion, determination, resilence, all emotions that crossed over each of their faces.

Those of us who witnessed the moment, were just were in awe, their was a moment of stunned silence, then a roar of cheers and support from the onlookers as the moment sunk in.

But what a Boy can do, a girl can do as well. So as shattered bodies hit the ground a young girl with cerebral palsy also utilsing a walker asked to give it a go. Kids picked up their shattered bodies and made their way back on the wall.... other kids stepped up to help, all with smiles and their own determination to make a difference.

That day in an amazing effort they got their second kid with major mobility difficulties to the top of a climb. Another young person, got their moment at the top of a climb and realise that nothing is impossible, she got to look down and realise what she had achieved and to do her victory dance.

There is that saying that it takes a tribe to raise a child, and it is so true, for a small moment we were part of something special, apart of creating a moment for two youth to show their greatness, to enable them to achieve something most people would have said was impossible. More importantly we were apart of a moment of share joy and pride. 

Apart from the delight and smiles on the faces of those kids who everyday undertake such unbelievable challenges in life, to see them achieve their greatness, facing an impossible challenge, I will remember two other scenes from that day:

One of our 15 yr old girls, shattered, exhausted, just flopping down, looking up at the ceiling, physically exhausted with the biggest grin on her face, and the other moment, seeing One of our teenage boys standing quiet to the side looking up physically spent just saying to himself, that was the best thing ever....

Not only is this program giving something back to kids who face challenges in life, it is also giving some immense pride and sense of achievement for those kids working with them...