Riding for the Disabled

The Phoenix Children’s Foundation has chosen Riding for the Disabled as one of the projects we would like to support. Riding provides disabled children with a feeling of freedom and independence, which is something we all take for granted. It also helps many children with their co ordination and builds up their strength. RDA was established in 1967 and now has 500 member groups providing riding and driving for over 25,000 members made possible by 18,000 volunteers.

Some of the groups we have helped so far are The Pegasus Group of Coventry to whom we made a donation of 1,000. The benefits of riding sessions are shown by the improvement in the children’s co ordination and strength.

One such child, Stephanie is 9yrs old and has Cerebral Palsy, hearing and sight difficulties and no verbal communication. On her first riding session she could not support her own head and communicated with no one, after 6 sessions of therapy she was saying “hello” to the pony and stroking him and loving him saying “walk on” and holding her head upright for 70% of the session. See the photos on this page below.

Another group is the Witham Villa Riding Centre, Kimberley House Group in Astley Leicestershire. So far we have raised 2,773 for this group alone. (See gallery)

Other groups to have benefited are the Market Bosworth Group, the Erdlington Bridge Group the Tettenhall Group and the Nuneaton and Warwickshire Group; so far a total of over £7,000 have been donated to these groups.