Campaign stories

Maria & Gerard

Born with down syndrome, Gerard is a young man with many goals in life, one of which was to get a good job, and the second, to become a famous actor. Maria started working with Gerard at the beginning of 2008 and the two of them have formed a solid working relationship; built largely on trust in one another and Maria’s unflagging faith in Gerard’s potential to succeed.

Within a short time Maria and Gerard have worked together to achieve his goals, with Gerard winning Best Male Actor at the Australian Tropfest short film awards, and securing a Part Time job at McDonalds.

Now they both share the same philosophy in life, and that is, in Gerard’s words “To follow your dreams and go for it. Help other people. Help them to communicate. Help them to solve their problems and their other upsets. Help them to keep going.”

Ken & Ange

Ken was the manager of a steel powder coating plant until, at the age of 44, he felt an overwhelming need to do something more worthwhile - to be more involved with his community. He applied for a job at Cerebral Palsy Alliance (formerly The Spastic Centre) and got it. That was 14 years ago and that’s where he began caring for Ange.

Ange has cerebral palsy, is in a wheelchair and cannot talk. Their main method of communicating is by using the alphabet. Ange moves her head either to the left (which means start at A) or to her right (which means start at L). Ken then calls out the alphabet A, B, C, D, etc until she moves her head indicating the letter she wants. Then comes the next letter, and the next and so on. It sounds time consuming, and it is, but after 10 years together they’ve got it down to a fine art.

One of Ange’s true passions is a ball game called Boccia which Ken assists her with. It is one of the very few times in Ange’s life where she has total control of what’s going on as Ken can do nothing and makes no decisions until Ange gives him an instruction. Thanks to their unique teamwork and absolute trust in each other Ange has won the national title three times in a row, but she hasn’t finished there. Now she has her eye on the biggest prize of all, a gold medal at the Paralympics.

But perhaps the greatest reward comes to Ken as he says in his own words ”Seeing her each day and the courage she shows really helps me in my life everyday.”

Linda & Mr Lam

(1915 - 2010)

Born in Malacca in 1915, Mr Lam experienced a lot in his 95 years, with many ups and downs, bitter and sweet.

Having moved with his father at an early age to live in Beijing, he later worked as a teacher until exchanging the pen for the sword as China went to war.

At the rise of the communist party he found himself unable to live under their ideals and moved to Hong Kong where he first owned a farm, then worked in a bank, before eventually settling in his favourite place of all, Australia.

Although in his nineties, Mr Lam’s brain still functioned as well as ever and he still had an active lifestyle, as a member of his local bowling club, a keen gardener and practitioner of Tai Chi.

When his wife passed away he sometimes felt lonely. A loneliness alleviated by his paid care workers’ visits, because to Mr Lam the simple act of sitting, talking and joking about life brought him all the happiness he needed.

And funnily enough, even though he had almost a century of life experience to share, he believed he learnt more from his paid care staff than they did from him.

Read more about Linda & Mr Lam's story