The Services We Support

The Ryder-Cheshire Foundation New Zealand raises funds for Ryder-Cheshire centres and the services they provide to neighbouring villages and towns.

These services are located in New Zealand, India and Timor-Leste.

While there are Ryder-Cheshire services in New Zealand, most of our fundraising efforts are for projects at Raphael in India and Klibur Domin in Timor-Leste.

We are most grateful to the generosity of donors who have made bequests in their will and this money has funded specific projects with the project carrying the name of the benefactor.

Raphael, India

Raphael is in Dehradun in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

While visiting there in the mid-1950s, Leonard Cheshire stumbled upon a community of people with leprosy living on a riverbed. (The riverbed is free land. It is dry for most of the year but floods during the monsoon season.)

To help this community and others in the area needing relief from suffering, Cheshire and Sue Ryder built Raphael. It opened in April 1959 and was their first venture together.

Raphael’s mission is to provide relief in the fields of leprosy, physical and intellectual disability and tuberculosis. The centre’s services provide care and rehabilitation to those in need, irrespective of caste, creed or religion.

Raphael has a TB hospital and a ward for adults with chronic illnesses. It provides housing for people with leprosy. There is also a boarding hostel for children.

Raphael offers residential care and vocational services for people with physical and intellectual disabilities. There is a special education department that includes rehabilitative workshops teaching weaving, candle making and block-printing.

There are also mobile units that service local villages, including supporting families raising children with disabilities. Raphael promotes integrating children with disabilities into mainstream schools. This partnership continues to be a positive learning process for both the school and the child with the disability.

Raphael is funded by support groups in New Zealand and Australia. While it has paid staff, the centre also benefits from teachers, physiotherapists, medical professionals and others who want to make a difference as volunteers.

Ryder-Cheshire Foundation New Zealand is responsible for raising the $10,000 a year needed to provide daily milk to each resident at Raphael.

Klibur Domin, Timor Leste

Klibur Domin was established in 2000 to relieve the suffering of Timorese people who were sick, disabled or destitute.

Services at Klibur Domin include:

• Treating patients who are either waiting or recovering from surgery, and others with medical conditions including TB, strokes, wounds, kidney failure, bone fractures and malnutrition.

• Providing high care for Multi Drug Resistant TB patients

• Accommodating elderly residents, some with disabilities

• Detecting and treating TB in remote villages.

• Supporting people with disabilities in remote villages as well as providing respite care for people with disabilities.

Klibur Domin has a mobile TB Team which visits outlying villages to conduct diagnostic tests and supervise treatment and medication.

There is also a Community Based Rehabilitation Team which identifies children and adults with disabilities living in outlying villages. This team provides assessments, therapy, equipment, and ongoing support for these people and their families, in their homes and at their schools.

Ryder-Cheshire Foundation New Zealand raised funds to help build a new TB clinic at Klibur Domin.

New Zealand Services

Two Ryder-Cheshire Foundations provide services in New Zealand. The Foundation in Palmerston North runs a centre for people with physical disabilities. The Foundation in Hamilton specialises in building accessible housing.

A Place for Living

The Ryder-Cheshire Foundation in Palmerston North was established in 1979 to support people with a physical disability.  

Their mission statement is: “A place to live; a home of one’s own.”

The Foundation runs a centre situated in a well-developed residential area, with easy access to suburban shops, bus route and other amenities.

There are nine specially designed houses at the centre for residents with a variety of physical disabilities. These disabilities include congenital and those resulting from traumatic brain injury.

The centre provides care across the spectrum. Some are highly dependent. Others live in a flatting situation with minimal daily staff assistance. The centre also offers short stay accommodation.

Whether physically disabled from birth, by accident or illness, adults coming under the care of the Foundation are provided with accommodation, care and support to develop skills, gain confidence and a sufficient level of independence to reach their full potential and enjoy a quality of life.

Donations and grants help with the costs of running the centre.

For more information, visit www.rydercheshiremanawatu.org.nz

Enhancing Lives

Ryder-Cheshire Foundation Waikato builds wheelchair accessible homes for people living with a disability. 

Their mission statement is: “To enhance lives by providing accessible, affordable, quality housing for people with disabilities.”

They have built seven wheel-chair friendly, accessible homes for the needs of people living with disabilities. One of the homes is a full-time care facility. The others are managed as independent flatting households.

Situated in Hamilton, the homes allow residents to achieve qualities of independence, care, companionship and accessibility within the local community.

Residents in each of the shared flatting houses can choose their own support service to provide assistance if required. The full-time managed care facility for residents with higher needs is run by NZ Care.

Those living in the homes come from hospital, rehabilitation facilities, from living with aging parents, or simply from unsuitable premises that have restricted their quality of life.

Donations and grants help the Foundation build more accessible housing and to keep the room rents affordable.

For more information, visit www.rcfwaikato.org.nz