Strong Voices

Lynda Young-Kennedy knows the gravel roads, the steep tracks and the dead-ends of Southland’s back country better than most people.

Dame Denise L’Estrange-Corbet is the new Patron of IHC, an organisation she committed to long ago when she was asked to judge the IHC Art Awards in 2009.

Travel and tourism student Gavin Allpress plans to see more of the world one day and to help other disabled people travel more easily. With strong ambition and support from IHC, he is working on his life plans.

Dairy farmers are keeping a dream alive for Karen Chapman, who grew up on a dairy farm in the small Waikato settlement of Otaua and has only ever wanted to milk cows.

Who cares for the carers? The people who do the best job are those walking in the same shoes.

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IHC Association member Doreen Barns wondered what had happened when she had a call just before Christmas from a reporter from the Whanganui Chronicle.

No matter where you live in the country, you have some friends in high places in Wellington.

Former IHC Vice President Shelley Payne was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours, for services to people with intellectual disabilities.

It was a quirky idea – donate a calf to IHC and get a pair of gumboots. But for some reason dairy farmers said, “Count on us”.

David Simpson had the ground cut from beneath him when his Kaiapoi home was destroyed in the first Christchurch quake. Then the ground shifted again.