For 21-year-old India, a rare connective tissue disorder has shaped almost every aspect of her daily life. A grant from the Wilson Home Trust gave her a wheelchair – and with it, the freedom to travel.
India’s condition, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, affects every connective tissue in her body, making walking, standing and even breathing difficult . It’s so rare, it went undiagnosed for years. “Unfortunately it’s not well recognised here in New Zealand,” she explains. “It affects everything.”
As she was growing up, India’s family borrowed wheelchairs when she needed them, thanks to her father’s role managing the Life Mobility Centre in Rotorua. But borrowing had its limits. “I got to the point where I needed more than that,” she says. “I needed an electric chair to properly support my condition and enable me to start enjoying my life more.”
Sourcing the funding, however, proved difficult. So India’s family reached out to the Wilson Home Trust for an equipment and activity grant. “The team was amazing – they managed to put funding together from a few different places,” she says.
Opening up a whole new world
India has now had her wheelchair for almost two years. In that time, she has travelled solo through the UK, Spain and Portugal – nine months on the road, largely by herself. “I’d never have even got to the UK without the wheelchair,” she says. “Even the journey itself would have been too difficult.” She knows this firsthand as she has made the trip once without the chair, and once with it. It made all the difference, enabling her to see more, do more, and be much more independent.
India is pictured above (top) outside the Midland Hotel in Manchester, where her grandparents were engaged many years ago, so it holds a special place in her heart. The second photo shows India’s accessible luggage system which attaches to her wheelchair.
Back home in Rotorua, the impact of the grant impacts her life every single day. “Now, if my dad says, ‘let’s go to the supermarket’, I can actually go,” she says. “It’s given me so much quality of life – things I’d forgotten about doing.”
Over the years, the Wilson Home Trust has also supported India with funding for physiotherapy and psychology. A recumbent bike, funded back in 2019 following a stint living at the Wilson Home, still gets used for physio to this day.
“All these things, they add up,” she says. ““Every grant I’ve received from the Wilson Home Trust has improved my life. I tell everyone I meet who has a physical disability to go through them for funding. Getting this support has been such a privilege and I couldn’t be more grateful.”
Today, India focuses on her health while doing some journalism work and volunteering with Rotorua’s Access Council. She is determined to help make the city more accessible for others – so that others living with disabilities can make the most of life too.
A grant can mean the world to someone living with a physical disability. If you’d like to help us fund more, please donate today.