A VISIT TO CHESHIRE SERVICES ETHIOPIA - 19 Nov - 8 Dec 2004
by Pauline Lipscomb, RDASI RDA ILO



This project was sponsored by BESO at the request of Cheshire Services Ethiopia (CSE) with the object of training staff and field workers to provide riding activities at the Cheshire Rehabilitation Centre near Menagesha, twenty-seven kilometres west of Addis Ababa.

Forty-three years ago Emperor Haile Selassie's grandchildren invited the Cheshire Foundation in London to set up a home in Ethiopia for the benefit of disabled children. In 1962 Leonard Cheshire visited Addis Ababa and a Cheshire Home, (subsequently renamed The Cheshire Rehabilitation Centre, because of the work that is done there), was built with the assistance of local supporters and members of the RAF based in Aden, who gave up their leave to work on the project.

Princess Anne, who visited The Cheshire Rehabilitation Centre in its fortieth anniversary year, discussed with Mrs Lilla Heaslip MBE, President of CSE, the possibility of starting up riding for the disabled there.

The resources at the Rehabilitation Centre are excellent and include classrooms, a well- equipped physiotherapy unit, a small farm and an orthopaedic workshop. The dormitories and all common areas are well maintained and kept spotlessly clean. Many of the children, who come from all parts of Ethiopia and who are sourced by the Centre's Outreach Programme (which is equipped with a mobile clinic), have never previously attended school. By the time they leave the Centre most of them will have acquired basic literacy skills and be ready to continue their education in the schools near their homes, wherever these are available.

The children who live at the Centre are all polio victims and are aged between six and sixteen years. They are admitted to the Centre and are prepared for surgery at the Russian Red Cross Balcha Hospital near Addis Ababa. Subsequently they receive treatment in the form of plaster casts and intensive physiotherapy. They are then fitted with appropriate walking aids and progress to a sufficient stage of independence that they are enabled to return home. This usually takes some four to six months.

As regards riding facilities at the Centre, there is a building with two large loose boxes, a tack room and a feed room. This building is situated at the edge of a large sloping field and has only a small level area for riding. There are two elderly ponies and two inexperienced Ethiopian grooms, donated by the British Embassy. The tack for the ponies, which was donated by Thorowgood, Norton and Newby and Cox, all of the UK, replaced the borrowed Embassy tack.

CSE has a community based Rehabilitation Programme in Addis Ababa. There are sixteen field workers, who each care for up to thirty children with different disabilities in their homes. They visit each child twice a week for around two hours, during which its parents are taught basic hygiene skills, childcare and how to facilitate their children's special exercises.

The sixteen field workers travelled from Addis Ababa each day to join the resident physiotherapists and the grooms for instruction, which I provided in the classroom. This was essential, because of the shortage of ponies and an almost total lack of familiarity with horsemanship. None of them had ever ridden previously and several had a clear fear of horses, which they did not even want to touch! They were, however, very keen to learn and their standard of English was good. Nevertheless my instruction was facilitated by the laborious translation of the various 'parts' of the pony from English into Amharic!

After a series of morning class instructions, which I gave during the three weeks of my stay, (with the aid of videos and overhead slides covering basic practical training, including horse behaviour and handling, therapeutic benefits of riding, safety, pony care, record keeping, games and goals for riders as well as job descriptions for instructors, leaders and side-walkers), I felt that I had been able to impart a reasonable level of knowledge to my new students.

On the first afternoon the grooms demonstrated pony rides, with the children being lifted onto the ponies and "pulled" round the field. This all changed rapidly and the following afternoon we had a mounting block, bending poles, 'mugs' (for a handy pony course) and thin eucalyptus tree trunks as poles. The next day we added Ethiopian music, which, to our amusement, startled the ponies!

We were invited to use the British Embassy manège, their equipment and four ponies for one day. This provided an ideal opportunity for the field workers and physiotherapists to ride the ponies themselves. It also gave them a chance to use a proper riding area. They learned how to use the school to practise the mounting routine, leading and side helping. Meanwhile a giant tortoise appeared from the undergrowth, teaching them to be prepared for all eventualities! The Head Groom acted as a most helpful Deputy Instructor.

We also spent a day at the Golf Club Stables, having been invited by an American lady who is very keen to have disabled riders at the establishment, near Addis Ababa, which she runs. The children from the home based Rehabilitation Programme would benefit from riding there, as the journey from home to the Centre is long and bumpy.

At the end of the second week four children from Addis Ababa, with their parents, visited the Rehabilitation Centre and had their first ride. The field workers selected a blind child, a deaf child, a slow learner and a child with cerebral palsy. It was great success in spite of their long journey to the Centre. This was repeated the following week with four more children who all had cerebral palsy.

In the third week we again had four children and their parents with a similar pattern of disabilities, but this time there was also a child with spina bifida. On this occasion we used the Golf Club Stables, which was a particularly suitable venue. Here, the grooms have been taught to instruct able-bodied children and quickly picked up the RDA routine. After the children had left, the grooms gave the field workers an extra riding session. This demonstrated that the grooms were capable, with some further guidance, of applying this knowledge to teaching the disabled children to ride.

This was an excellent project for all the disabled children concerned and a great interest was shown throughout by the staff of CSE. At the end, two of the field workers and one of the physiotherapists at the Rehabilitation Centre reached the level at which they would be able to organise and teach at future riding sessions, (with just two ponies) with the help of a physiotherapist, (to adjust calipers). However, there will be the need for a follow-up and further training within the next few months.

Before leaving Ethiopia, I made the recommendation that the two grooms at the Rehabilitation Centre should return to the Embassy for further instruction in horse care, together with a carefully selected person, who would, after suitable training, be made responsible for keeping records of feeding, worming and annual injections (for African horse sickness, tetanus and rabies, all of which were one month out of date when I arrived!).

The enthusiasm shown, when I left them to fly home, was indeed rewarding and encouraging. For my own part I found the visit very stimulating, having had the opportunity to work with such wonderful people, but who need a lot of help, and in such an interesting and beautiful country.


Note: Bishop Andrew provided Pauline Lipsomb with a grant towards the expenses of this trip to Ethiopia, a country with which the See of Ebbsfleet has had past charity links and from which Bishop Andrew's pectoral cross comes.

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