Strong Voices

Warren Erickson is a beef and sheep farmer from Gore who hasn’t done a lot of bike riding since he left school. That’s about to change.

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Out of challenges can come great opportunities and that is certainly the case with IHC Media.

IHC Media is an online platform launched in 2022 with content created for and by people with intellectual disabilities.

The families who make up the New Zealand Williams Syndrome Association met for their summer camp in Whanganui in January – and there was a lot to catch up on.

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When Manaakiao was diagnosed with Williams syndrome at the age of four, his parents Jamie-Leigh and Puke Timoti asked what the Māori term for Williams syndrome was.

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An accident 20 years ago on a gravel road put an end to Duane Harrington’s forestry work.

Duane was coming home from working on a forestry block just outside Palmerston, north of Dunedin, when the vehicle he was in went out of control. Surgeons had to insert a metal rod into his badly broken leg.

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The Ministry of Education has launched new rules and guidelines to help schools understand more about student distress and minimise the use of physical restraint. The guidelines also aim to eliminate the use of unjustified restraint.

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The hard work is much more satisfying since a group of Christchurch IDEA Services volunteers joined the Student Volunteer Army.

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Napier’s much-photographed Pania of the Reef was attracting attention from a group of people with cameras. But this time they weren’t tourists.

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IHC is expanding its Family-Whānau Liaison team in Northland and Auckland to make sure more families caring for people with intellectual disabilities can get the help they are missing out on.

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Medal-winning powerlifter Lynett Williams will now get her chance to compete in the 2023 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Berlin this year.

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