Skydive Dream Comes True for a Community Member With Cerebral Palsy - Thanks to UKZN Students

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Thirty-year old, Mr Daniel Ngcobo of Durban, who has athetoid cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound, has completed a quantum sky dive fulfilling a dream of his … and it was all made possible through the support of Occupational Therapy (OT) students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Westville campus.

The 4^th year students from the Discipline of OT wanted to do something to repay Ngcobo for regularly visiting their Department and talking to them about his illness - so they organised a raffle raising enough money to cover the costs of the jump.

Ngcobo did his jump through the Eston Skydiving Centre.  After a thorough on-the-ground briefing, he was airborne with his quantum colleagues and took that big leap of faith out of the aircraft with them.

‘Wow! I had a really great day!’ said Ngcobo. ‘The experience was better than good! I want to do this every year!’ Ngcobo says he has dreams and goals of working, getting married, being more independent and most recently – skydiving!

He says people with disabilities get very little exposure in the media and it is important to raise awareness about that. ‘Facilities for disabled people are limited as well so it would be nice if others were more understanding towards people with disabilities. If I can get a therapist to understand a disabled person’s predicament they will be able to learn and grow and become better therapists.’

Occupational Therapy student, Ms Dominque de Klerk, said: ‘The Discipline was inspired by recent turn of events from NEKnominations into RAKnominations (Random Acts of Kindness) and ChangeOneThing on social media, hence we decided to follow suite and make someone’s dream come true.

‘We told Daniel that this was from us to him for being the most inspirational speaker our class has ever had. He genuinely brings such a different perspective to disability and in turn, will make us all better therapists one day. He deserves it.’

Community Module Co-ordinator, Ms Helga Koch, said the initiative had been good for the Discipline. ‘It makes them a collective part of something bigger… we are trying to teach our students that they can dream, and dream big.’

UKZN’s Discipline of Occupational Therapy nominated Occupational Therapy departments in South Africa and abroad, as well as Red Bull, to now move forward and complete their own RAK nomination.

-          Zakia Jeewa