New Zealand’s premier specialised equipment display is coming up really soon! “Show Your Ability” is the official moniker attached to a fantastic showfloor dedicated to assistive equipment for disabled people and those who work in the industry. The show includes the display of: Wheelchairs Vehicle modifications Mobility scooters Shower stools Walking frames Portable ramps, and much much more! The show will be hitting your town as follows: Auckland: Tuesday 26th February, 9am – 3pm, Trusts Stadium, Waitakere. Hamilton: Wednesday 27th

Following on from last week’s entry about the Mobility Dog Trust’s golf tournament fundraiser, I was stoked to come across an article which features a friend of mine, Amy Hogan, who has just received her own mobility dog, Bonnie. “It’s the indefinable stuff that’s most important,” she says. “I can be completely alone or I can be in a crowd and it doesn’t matter. It gives me the confidence to do things without worrying, because I know I’ve got Bonnie.”

You know what strikes me about this story, even more so than the disgusting nature of it, is the idea that I’m 100% sure stuff like this goes on every day, unnoticed by all except the devious individuals themselves… A caregiver’s first criminal offence was “a fall from grace in a spectacular fashion”, said Christchurch District Court Judge Jane Farish. She said the offending was a significant breach of trust against an extremely vulnerable man. Fifty-eight-year-old Philip Langley Newsome was

If you haven’t heard of them already, the Mobility Assistance Dogs Trust is a fantastic non-profit organisation that provides Mobility Dogs for those with physical disabilities, with the aim to “increase the independence, confidence and self-esteem of mobility impaired individuals.” The Mobility Dogs team receive no government funding whatsoever, and so rely solely on corporate and public support to continue providing their invaluable services, which have such a profound impact on the lives of the recipients of one of these

Listen up! If you haven’t heard of Re-Li-On-Us Mobility Transport and you use a wheelchair to get around, particularly a power chair, then read this. It will change your life. I kid you not. Re-Li-On-Us are the new mobility taxi company in town, with a difference. They are 24/7, which is particularly important given recent events. They are also, as the name aptly suggests, reliable. Case in point: I needed to attend a Christmas function in town last night, but

“If you dream it and believe it, you can achieve it”. This is the motto of motivational speaker and track champion Cameron Calkoen, so it’s no surprise that he’s the one behind the revolutionary step in the world of mentoring, a programme he’s dubbed “Carabiner”. Carabiner is a mentoring project developed in conjunction with the North Shore LIFE Centre, and aims to contribute towards a society where young people with disabilities are optimistic about the future, and are supported and

If you live in Auckland and currently use one of those ARTA cards for half-price taxi fares, listen up: this one’s for you. The Cerebral Palsy Society, the wonderful people that they are, are running a limited pilot programme called getOutThere, which encourages people with cerebral palsy to participate actively within their community. How are they hoping to achieve this, I hear you ask? Well, successful applicants are given a set of taxi vouchers (~$200 worth for the 6 month

And you thought it was just those crazy poms who want to stop those with disabilities having babies – oh no, it’s happening right here on our front doorstep, too. An intellectually disabled woman, pregnant for the third time in as many years, is “incapable of looking after herself, let alone a baby”, according to the woman’s ‘Aunty’ (not blood-related), and should be sterilised. The BOP Times are reporting that she is currently living on the streets of Auckland, which

I know I’m running on a bit of an Australian angle today, but I gotta admit, they’re leading the way… In Sydney over the weekend, a new political party – “The Carers Alliance Party” – was established by parents of children with a disability. They’re aiming to increase awareness within government about the struggles that carers, and in particular carers who are family members, face in looking after those they love. They’re campaigning for better support services (or in some