Arriving at the Southland RDA there were so many active volunteers, all who had loads of experience with horses. We started with a tour of the facility and then were introduced to the horses and shown around the stalls and how they get ready for a day. But the real show stopper is seeing the children’s faces when they arrive. The excitement is real, the love and passion is real. I felt very humbled to be a part of it.

When Pam McMillan decided that New Zealand Riding For The Disabled needed a covered arena back in 1989, her husband just laughed.

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Up until then Southland RDA was run in all weather conditions, but with some determination and motivation, many fundraising and voluntary hours and donations, the committee got the facility built.

Proving her husband wrong and prompting him to say “what a woman,” there are now twenty-three riders using the arena, ranging in age from six to twenty-nine, with space for more.

The core purpose of NZRDA is to provide interaction with horses to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for people experiencing specific challenges or needs.

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“Anyone can ride with us here at Southland RDA (Riding for the Disabled), whether they have social, emotional, behavioural, physical or intellectual disabilities.

What we do here is life changing for our riders, we teach life skills to help our riders outside of the RDA so they can have meaningful participation in, and contribution to, important life activities and roles in their community.”

Southland RDA runs three programs, therapy, education, sport and recreation. There is still spots available on a Tuesday and Thursday.

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We are not government funded and all the money to keep us running comes from grants, donations, arena hires and some private riding lessons.

We are run primarily with volunteers and only have a couple of paid contractors. If we did not have our volunteers we would not exist. But obviously our most important asset is our amazing horses, of which we own four and the rest we lease from people.

We absolutely love what we do and the people we work with and the joy it brings from working with and seeing our riders achieve new goals. It is inspirational.

Kelly Joins Riding For The Disabled For A Day

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