The controls allow disabled people with lower limb disabilities to control the plane with just their hands. Article from from November 2011 issue of LOOP available online! http://bit.ly/voQQhJ:

You can watch videos from the epic 5 day tour on the following page or just day 1 and 4 from the videos below: http://www.freedomintheair.org/category/film/

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Within Britain there are over 6 million full time carers, but the work of this forgotten army goes unpaid. Yasmin has been dedicated to gifting many lives with unconditional love and support. Looking after her stepdaughter who suffers from muscular dystrophy took up a lot of time and energy, but Yasmin’s support and commitment to care for those less fortunate did not stop there. In search for other children who have disabilities, with a vision to set up a centre which provides respite care. Yasmin launched Friends of Bright Eyes as a voluntary charity. With minimal funds it was very difficult to keep the charity operating. A wife, mother and full time carer, Yasmin never looked back, always went that extra mile to help and 14 years later the charity which Yasmin started at home, now accommodates for over 50 children a week.

The hugely popular Freedom Wings days are designed to give youngsters with disabilities what is very often their first experience of flight in a light aircraft. Just to see the expressions on the children’s faces is evidence enough of the enjoyment and satisfaction they get from this new experience and their pleasure also guarantees a happy day for the whole family. We try, when possible, to ensure that brothers and sisters and parents get the opportunity to fly together at these events when their involvement is instrumental in siblings also having this exciting opportunity, Freedom is definitely “key”.

Variety Club the children’s charity in association with Freedom in the Air and Cranfield Flying School this week selected  the first young person with a disability  for a unique scholarship that will allow a young person to achieve a National private pilots licence (NPPL) over the summer holidays.

Shelbi Grist (17) suffers from McCune Albright Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder as well as Polistic Fibres Displacia, a rare bone disease and Focal Nodular Hyperplacia, a liver complaint.  Even though Shelbi has a rafter of disabilities she has never let this stop her fulfilling her dreams and is currently activity involved in sport having received her National Diploma of Sport and is in a national wheelchair basket ball team while in full time education studying Sports Therapy. Based in Portsmouth, Shelbi travels all over the UK to play basket ball and will be attending her pilot training twice a week for the next 10 weeks.

Based in Cranfield Airport near Milton Keynes, the scholarship was open to all young people between the ages for 17 – 19 with the primary aim to simply enable disabled young people the opportunity to realise their full potential through the pleasure and thrill of flying. After many weeks of searching for the right candidate Shelbi Grist was selected.

Shelbi will complete over 40 hours of dual and solo flying as well as intensive exams to achieve her National Private Pilot’s Licence which will give her full command of an aeroplane and in doing so change her life.

The programme has been funded by Freedom in the Air, Cranfield Flying School, Pooleys Flight Equipment and the De Vere Venues, part of the De Vere Group/MWB who have to date raised over £1.3m on behalf of the Variety Club through staff fundraising and corporate events.

Keith Andrews Chairman of Variety At Work commented “I am so proud to be able to offer this unique opportunity to such a fantastic candidate. I would like to thank Gautam Lewis at Freedom in The Air and all the pilots at Cranfield for making this a reality for Shelbi. Huge thanks to Freedom in the Air, Cranfield Flying School and De Vere Venues for funding this scheme. We wish Shelbi good luck.”

FITA founder Gautam Lewis, who uses crutches after contracting polio as a child in India, wants to show people disability is not a barrier to achievement. As an orphan growing up in the care of Mother Teresa, he believes that his calling in life is to help others less fortunate and celebrate in the spirit that the sky’s the limit.

He said: “I thought maybe I should do something positive about supporting disabled people, help them learn new skills and push them to a new level of confidence so that they can have opportunities.

“It’s trying to show what we can do regardless of disability.”

Together we intend to show that anyone can reach for the skies, and achieve virtually anything, sometimes with only the very smallest amount of support.

Monies raised will go towards our Freedom Wings project. Freedom Wings is a wonderful opportunity to introduce disadvantaged or disabled youngsters to the freedom experienced in the air. A day in a light aircraft, safely taking control of the plane for a short time is a life-changing experience and enables young people to feel that they can reach for the skies and achieve virtually anything. Flying is one of the few activities where disabled people can participate to the same degree as an able-bodied person.

Twenty youngsters from The Forces Children’s Trust (FCT) will have the chance of a lifetime to experience the freedom of flight, in the hope that it may expand their horizons when they attend the “Freedom Wings” day. FCT is a charity devoted to helping children whose father or mother has died, or has been seriously injured, whilst serving as a member of the British Armed Forces.  FCT is an agile charity providing support and positive experiences to children who have suffered a great loss. By participating in events like Theatre trips holidays with other children in a similar situation they can create their own way of moving forward.

Together we intend to show that anyone can reach for the skies, and achieve virtually anything, sometimes with only the very smallest amount of support. The pilots ‘one off’ flight could be as life changing for them as someone who flies every week and ends up with their Private Pilots Licence. Flight Lieutenant Owen Varley, a Puma helicopter pilot based at RAF Benson, and Trustee of FCT will be attending the Freedom Wings day.

FITA founder Gautam Lewis, who uses crutches after contracting polio as a child in India, organises the Freedom Wing day to show people that disability is not a barrier to achievement.

He said: “I thought maybe I should do something positive about supporting disabled people and those with complicated backgrounds, help them learn new skills and push them to a new level of confidence so that they can have opportunities.

“It’s trying to show what we can do regardless of adversity.”

Flying is one of the few activities where the uplifting experience rebuilds confidence and restores self-esteem, and thus empowers people to explore their potential by extending their personal boundaries. In the air, we all fly at the same speed; nobody is disadvantaged. The young people will look around a light aircraft and airport hangars, learn how aeroplanes work and then take to the skies for 30 minutes with experienced instructors.

The Freedom Wings pilots will get to take control of the plane and, in doing so, their lives can change. They are doing something that they never thought they could possibly do;  fly a plane. Then they start to imagine what else they
could achieve.

Freedom Wings days are great fun. We challenge, we educate, we empower. We use flying to raise people’s sights, expand their horizons and fulfill their potential. The day culminates in each Freedom Wings pilot receiving a personal record of their flight, together with a special log book provided by Pooleys and signed certificates as a memento of a very unique day.

FITA is a not-for-profit organisation based at Cranfield Airport and works in partnership with Cranfield Flying School (Flight Training Organisation, FTO 170), which is committed to opening horizons for people with disabilities so that they can fly higher socially, physically and professionally. For more information about both organisations

please visit www.freedomintheair.org / www.forceschildrenstrust.org
The day will be organised as a fun day for all and it is hoped to see many smiles.

To watch videos from the summer 2010 Freedom Wings days with over 150 youngsters please visit: www.freedomintheair.org/take-a-look/

The World report on disability, mandated by the World Health Assembly and jointly published by WHO and the World Bank, summarizes the best available scientific evidence on disability and makes recommendations for action in support of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006). About 80% of people with disabilities worldwide live in low-income countries. People with disabilities are often among the most socially and economically disadvantaged and their rights are denied in many countries. Despite the enormity of the problem, scientific information on disability is lacking. There is no agreement on definitions and little internationally comparable information on the incidence, distribution and trends of disability.

The World report on disability addresses the need for better research and data on disability. It will include the first update of WHO’s disability prevalence estimates for more than thirty years. The World report on disability also explores current evidence about disability, including on discrimination and barriers, identifies needs and provides an analysis of what works to improve the lives of people with disabilities in the areas of health, rehabilitation, support services, information, infrastructure, transportation, education and employment.

The WHO Director-General and a Vice President of the World Bank launched the World report on disability on 9 June 2011 at the United Nations headquarters, New York, in the presence of high-level representatives from Member States, celebrities with disabilities, together with representatives of disabled people’s organizations, professional groups and non-governmental organizations. This will be followed by a half day technical session on how to implement the recommendations of the World report on disability.

To promote the World report on disability and its messages, four short films are being launched between December 2010 and June 2011 on the theme “What’s disability to me?”, featuring women with disabilities from the United Republic of Tanzania, Lebanon, United Kingdom and the Plurinational State of Bolivia talking about their lives and the barriers they have overcome.  The films will be available on the WHO YouTube channel, and via links on the WHO Facebook page and the WHO main website. Leading up to the launch, the goal is to build an online community to mobilize international interest and support for efforts to remove barriers to the participation of people with disabilities in their societies.
“Disability is part of the human condition,” said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan at a ceremony in UN headquarters to launch the report. “Almost every one of us will be permanently or temporarily disabled at some point in life.”

“We must do more to break the barriers which segregate people with disabilities, in many cases forcing them to the margins of society,” Dr. Chan said.

Etienne Krug, a WHO disability specialist, suggested that the barriers themselves are a cause of disability.

“Disability results a lot from the barriers that society erects for people with disabilities,” he said, “barriers such as stigma and discrimination; such as lack of access to health services and rehabilitation services or problems of access to transportation and buildings and information services.”

Speaking to UN Radio, Dr. Krug called for the “mainstreaming of all services. That means to make everything accessible. Children with disabilities shouldn’t go to school to a segregated school, but rather be integrated in a normal school as much as possible.

“Employment should be accessible to people with disability so that they don’t have to live in poverty or from charity. Health services should be designed so that they also respond to the needs of people with disabilities. So basically all services should be accessible to people with disabilities.”

The famed British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), told the launch via video: “We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation for people with disabilities, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock their vast potential. It is my hope this century will mark a turning point for inclusion of people with disabilities in the lives of their societies.”

The barriers mentioned in the report include: stigma and discrimination; a lack of adequate health care and rehabilitation services; and inaccessible transport, buildings and information and communication technologies.

“As a result, people with disabilities experience poorer health, lower educational achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities,” WHO said.

The report recommended that governments and their development partners provide people with disabilities access to all mainstream services, invest in specific programmes and services for those people with disabilities who are in need, and adopt a national disability strategy and plan of action.

In addition, governments “should work to increase public awareness and understanding of disability, and support further research and training in the area. Importantly, people with disabilities should be consulted and involved in the design and implementation of these efforts.”

Nearly 150 countries and regional organizations have signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and 100 have ratified it, committing them to removing barriers so that people with disabilities may participate fully in their societies, WHO said.

On 28th MAY 2011 Freedom in the Air (FITA)  hosted the first ‘Introduction to Aviation’ day beginning from Cranfield Airport in Bedfordshire, UK (EGTC), for the summer 2011 flying season. The day is named, for obvious reasons, Freedom Wings day.

20 youngsters with a mixture of disabilities from Kangaroos had the chance of a lifetime to experience the freedom of flight, in the hope that it may expand their horizons when they attended the “Freedom Wings” day. Flying is one of the few activities where disabled people can participate to the same degree as an able-bodied person. The uplifting experience rebuilds confidence and restores self-esteem, and thus empowers people to explore their potential by extending their personal boundaries. In the air, we all fly at the same speed; nobody is disadvantaged or disabled. The young people looked around light aircrafts, learnt how aeroplanes work and then took to the skies for 30 minutes with experienced instructors. If they wished, the young people could’ve taken control of the plane and fly it themselves.

Kangaroos was established by a group of parents in 1993 to run out of school activities in Mid Sussex for children with severe leaning disabilities. There were no activities in the area suitable for special needs children to attend and they believed that their children needed and deserved activities that would be designed to cater for their very special requirements. Kangaroos run a range of recreational and leisure activities in Mid Sussex for children and young people from 6 to 30. All their members have learning disabilities and many have additional behavioural, physical or sensory problems, as well as a number with Autism and Epilepsy.

Freedom Wings day at Cranfield is part of a new project for Kangaroos which they have called “Challenges” and the aim is to provide a range of challenging physical experiences for young people aged from 13-25 with learning disabilities. These will be new experiences for the young people that will challenge them physically and emotionally, encouraging them to test themselves together with their peers in new environments, whilst being supported by staff and volunteers.

The young people have very little access to activities outside the home or school environment and can become incredibly isolated. Most lack the opportunity to take part in activities that will enable them to build the confidence and self-esteem necessary to both recognise and develop their abilities and broaden their horizons for later life. It is incredibly important that these young people are helped as much as possible to lead an independent life and they need the encouragement and opportunity to gain the required skills and competences to reach their full potential in every way.

Together we intend to show that anyone with a disability or from complicated backgrounds can reach for the skies, and achieve virtually anything, sometimes with only the very smallest amount of support. The pilots ‘one off’ flight could be as life changing for them as someone who flies every week and ends up with their Private Pilots Licence.

FITA founder Gautam Lewis, who uses crutches after contracting polio as a child in India, organises the Freedom Wing day to show people that disability is not a barrier to achievement. He said: “I thought maybe I should do something positive about supporting disabled people, help them learn new skills and push them to a new level of confidence so that they can have opportunities.”

“It’s trying to show what we can do regardless of disability.”

Freedom Wings days are great fun. We challenge, we educate, we empower. We use flying to raise people’s sights, expand their horizons and fulfill their potential.

The day was organised as a fun day for all and we saw see many smiling faces. FITA is very grateful to Pooleys and Backstreet Merchandise for providing the goody bags for the young pilots.

On 11 June 2011, Freedom in the Air (FITA) is holding its first skydive Freedom Freefall day. Supporters from across the country will join us at Peterborough Sibson airfield drop zone to take part in this amazing challenge and raise money for FITA.

Monies raised will go towards our Freedom Wings project. Freedom Wings is a wonderful opportunity to introduce disadvantaged or disabled youngsters to the freedom experienced in the air. A day in a light aircraft, safely taking control of the plane for a short time is a life-changing experience and enables young people to feel that they can reach for the skies and achieve virtually anything. Flying is one of the few activities where disabled people can participate to the same degree as an able-bodied person. The exhilarating experience rebuilds confidence and restores self-esteem. This, in turn, empowers people to explore their potential by extending their personal boundaries. In the air, we all fly at the same speed; nobody is disadvantaged or disabled.

FITA is very proud to be associated with The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, The Red Arrows . The Red Arrows have generously offered a VIP Day for 2 (unfortunately they cannot fly the winners) for FITA to raffle during the Freedom Freefall fundraiser. The winners will get to spend time with the pilots, look around the airfield, learn about how the team develop their aerobatic displays and have a special day to remember for forever. This is an incredible prize and we cannot thank the Red Arrows enough for their support. Runner up prize draw prizes include a VIP Weekend backstage camping pass for two at V-Festival 2011. The final prize is a 30 mins ride in a aerobatic aeroplane doing loops and barrel rolls.

We have planned several Freedom Wings days for the 2011 summer flying season with organisations such as, The Forces Children’s Trust (FCT) – supporting children that have lost a parent whilst serving with the Armed Forces, Raiders Wheelchair basketball team, Northampton County Council Disability Services to name a few. The Freedom Freefall fundraiser will help us raise enough funds to be able to support 300 young people with disabilities the chance to have a flying lessons.

How to take part

Application Details

Contact us for a skydiving pack by filling or call 020 8740 8806, leaving your name, postal address, telephone number. If you’re ready to sign up, you can register on UK Parachuting website.

Date and Location

The skydive will take place on 11 June 2011, at Peterborough Sibson Airfield.

Cost

The minimum sponsorship amount is £300. While jump costs at Peterborough Sibson Airfield are approximately £170, and will be paid by entrants on the day of the jump.

Conditions

Participants must be 16 and above, those under 18 need parental consent. A medical form will also need to be completed.  Those under the age of 18 will need the medical form signed by a parent or guardian; those aged 40 and over will need it signed by their doctor.

Deadline

The deadline for booking is 20 April 2011

Skydive throughout the year

If you can’t make it for our Skydive day, you can also take part in the challenge at a location closer to you. UK Parachuting have several jump sites around the country and you can choose to jump throughout the year. All you need to do to take up this opportunity is raise the minimum sponsorship of £300. Contact us for more information.

Why skydive for FITA?

• You will be raising money for FITA’s vital work in promoting and creating opportunities for people with disabilities in Aviation.
• Help us cover costs of developing, manufacturing and distributing hand controls for pilots with lower limb disabilities.
• You will receive information about how your fundraising helps young disabled people through our Freedom Wings Project
• You will be supported by a dedicated member of FITA Team in the build up to your jump.
• You will receive a fundraising pack, with loads of ideas so help you reach your fundraising target.
• You will receive a free FITA T-shirt.

How your fundraising will help?

FITA works tirelessly to promote aviation for people with disabilities. Our practical programmes help introduce thos with disabilities to the wonder of flight and the boundless possibilities it offers. Your support is greatly appreciated. The sum you raise it will make a real difference.

Raise £90 and you could buy a flying experience flight for someone with a disability or from the underserved community

Raise £1,400 and you could sponsor a mini scholarship that would enable a disabled person to have 10 hrs of flying lessons – where they could get to fly solo if they pass 2 exams

Visit our partners UK Parachuting, who are co-organising the event.