Strong Voices

Lynne Stringer and Sharon Anderson live two doors away from each other in Gore and they like it that way.

The two women have known each other for many years and lived together in IDEA Services group homes.

Now they both are where they want to be: living independently with support in their own homes and surrounded by the things that mean a lot to them.

Lynne, 63, is in Flat 3. She moved there two years ago and promptly broke her hip but that didn’t hold her up for long. “Now I have a walker and stick to get around,” she says.

“I wanted to move into my own flat. I like everything. I like cooking. I like baking. I have a garden – potatoes, carrots and leaks, and flowers.”

Lynne’s house has two bedrooms and she devotes one of them to her craftwork and sewing machine. “I just stay here and colour in and do sewing and that. I make aprons.”

She heads into town once a week to visit the bank and do her shopping, and attends a games day run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. On Sundays she takes a taxi to church. Her visitors are mostly people from her church.

She and Sharon don‘t see a lot of each other. They visit for birthdays and special occasions.

Sharon, 67, is in Flat 1. She moved there in September last year. “I used to live with my parents up until I was 30 or 40, but they are dead now.

“I have got two bedrooms and I sleep in one room and use the other room as a craft room,” she says. “I have got my own company; it’s really good. I have staff coming in and out in the morning and the night.”

Sharon loves LEGO and spends a lot of time creating models and looking for more LEGO. “I would like to get a job to get some money because LEGO is expensive,” she says. “Sometimes I go and visit my friends and visit Auntie Barbie and Lynn. I can cook, but I don’t cook very often.”

Lynne has been supported by IDEA Services since 1972 and Sharon since 1986. Their flats are owned by an independent landlord. Work and Income pays their rent directly and the rest of their bills are handled by a budgeting service.

Service Manager Edwene Hufkie says Sharon has always loved her time alone. “During the day she would keep herself busy with different activities and I can remember when I use to support Sharon she would always appreciate a good long conversation with staff after teatime.”

Support Worker Julie Tozer says Lynne also craved independence. “We talked to her and said, ‘Would you like to get a flat of your own?’ And she was over the moon. She has never looked back.”

While encounters between the two women might be rare these days, they both grew potatoes in buckets as part of the local IDEA Services ‘Spud in a bucket’ competition in Invercargill and Gore. Prizes for the biggest, heaviest, ugliest spuds and the best-decorated buckets were awarded at Easter.

Above: Neighbours Lynne Stringer (left) and Sharon Anderson are enjoying living independent lives in their own flats in Gore.