Kaye | Māngere Bridge, Auckland

“I volunteer at a local riding for disabled centre, and about three years ago, took on a horse who was a little bit difficult I would say, and nobody would ride him.

So, I’ve taken him on, and in the last year to 18 months, he is now having therapy students on him, and I am very proud of him. He’s doing very well.

Probably what I’ve learned from that is to have more patience. Just take your time, and gradually build up on the basics, and it will slowly come right, but very much patience with animals.

The centre here in Māngere Bridge is called Ambury Park Centre for Riding Therapy. It is a three-part centre where we have students that perhaps are a little challenged with normal school work. So, they come to us and we use the horse as a medium to hopefully get some response from them, and get them to work a bit better with their school work, and with their interaction with people, and generally trying to make them a better part of society, perhaps. Then, there is the therapy side of it where children with quite bad disabilities, well we use it as therapy to get their muscles working, and perhaps walking even, just sitting up better, just generally helping their everyday functions. Then there’s the vocational side of it, where there’s students that come to us every day, and they learn life skills. So, they might come here to the café, or go to the library, or go dancing, or they certainly ride horses every now and then too.

Volunteering is something I’ve probably always done. My husband and I have worked for the Police for a while, my husband for a long, long time. We’ve always worked in the community. We run the local community patrol here. So I think for us, working with the community, and helping as much as we can, is something that we just do every day. I guess, certainly Māngere Bridge being small like it is, everybody knows everybody else. So, it’s kind of cool to be able to help everybody if you can.

So I grew up in South Auckland. We’ve lived here in Māngere Bridge for over 40 years. My husband and I have been married for 50 years this year and family is really important. For example, through the Covid, Brian’s had to look after his 93 year old mother, so he’s had to sort of get out there and go and give her groceries and get her food, and I’ve been cooking her food at home, and that’s kind of brought to the fore, the fact that family is really important at this time, too. My son is in Palmerston North. So, we’ve really missed them over the last couple of months. But they’re coming up this week. So, yay!”