Strong Voices

For 30 years Stuart Jenkins has spoken up for disabled people, not just from his home base in Northland but throughout the country.

He was recently presented with a Certificate of Service by the IHC Whangārei Association in appreciation of his hard work and years of service.

Stuart joined the local Whangārei committee in 1993 and added his energy to its fundraising activities.

That energy was soon employed at a national level. In 2008 Stuart joined the IHC Self-Advocacy Advisory Group, a sub-committee of the IHC Board, and later that year he and his fellow committee members became co-researchers in IHC’s The Great Life Project.

IDEA Services had contracted researchers at the Donald Beasley Institute to create a quality-of-life questionnaire – which became the Great Life Project.

Donald Beasley researchers worked with co-researchers from the IHC Self Advocacy Advisory Group to develop a questionnaire that would help determine an individual’s quality of life. Researchers started by asking participants: What makes life good? What could make life better? What stops life from being good?

In 2010 Stuart and other Self-Advocacy Advisory Group members were involved in Our Stories, the forerunner to IHC’s travelling multimedia exhibition Take a Moment With Us. In 2011 the focus shifted to the General Election for Stuart and the Self-Advocacy group. The committee launched its ‘Get Ready and Vote’ campaign, highlighting issues that most affected people with intellectual disabilities.

Asked if he thought disabled people were living a great life, he says, “I hope they are.” Was he? “Yes.”

Stuart says he used to go to meetings throughout the country, talking about his life – something he enjoyed. But he says he wanted to get under the seat when the tributes started coming from IHC Whangārei Association Chair David Laird, IHC General Manager of Programme Janine Stewart and Area Manager Sally Hume.

Stuart, now 78, was born in Whangārei and lived and worked, mostly in agriculture, in the Whangārei area. He was in supported living with IDEA Services until October last year, when he moved from his flat to a rest home at Waipū.

He has joined the local Returned Services Association and a gardening club and still keeps up with IHC Association business in the north. “If I am in Whangārei on the night of the meeting, then I will go.”

Caption: Stuart Jenkins, honoured by the IHC Whangārei Association for his years of service.

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