About Us
The Terence Mills Trust was set up by Adrian D. Mills in memory of his father. He lives in West Sussex where he runs the Trust, alongside four other Trustees.
Due to an extreme sports accident in 1989, Adrian is now a T7 Paraplegic and is confined to a wheelchair. Through his efforts in Wheelchair sports and education, Adrian is now bringing mobility to hundreds of disabled people in Africa by recycling unwanted wheelchairs from Britain.
In 2005, while working as a Volunteer in the Gambia, Adrian saw the problems that people with disabilities were having in getting support and equipment. The Trust then initiated a project to re-establish some of those rehabilitation services by providing wheelchairs in the Gambia, with ideas to later expand into other areas of Africa. The Trust now helps to provide community-based rehabilitation as well as the equipment they so badly need and hopes to develop links with other UK-based charities, like ‘Motivation’ to improve on that further
We want to build on skills and to help people with a disability become more independent where one day their can be responsible for building their own wheelchairs and equipment.
The Trust is also working to support the Gambian National Para-lympic Committee and hope to get a team ready for the 2012 Olympics.
The Trust is committed to building awareness of the problems that people with a disability face in Africa and promoting initiatives to build a National Rehabilitation Center’s and several skills center’s in The Gambia.
The Wheels for Africa Appeal was started to help people with a disability in Africa get the medical equipment they so badly need. It is clearly evident that these disabled people are not only seen as a burden and a minority group, but through stereotypes, superstition and stigmas, some individuals were being totally ignored. The benefit of making someone mobile by providing them with the right equipment is key to helping them to make improvements to their lives and improves their chances of survival. It also provides the opportunity of a healthy life and possible education and job prospects. This is seen not just as a health benefit but also as a social benefit, allowing that person to be no longer be an outcast or excluded from their community. They can then play an active role in their society and hopefully have a voice that will allow other disabled people to have equal opportunities and the same rights as any able bodied person.
Facilities and services for people with a disability and Disabled Persons Organizations /groups are often the hardest hit when it comes to Government cut-backs and after the withdrawal of the Government money /funding and support the People are left hours away from the capital and main hospital with nothing.
Aims of the Appeal:
- Establish a National Recycle Centre in Britain for wheelchairs and old medical equipment so they can be taken and shipped to Africa and the third world countries on a regular basis
- Within 5 years to be shipping wheelchairs to at least 10 countries in Africa
- Generate sufficient publicity to increase public awareness and sensitization of the problem people with a disability face in Africa and the need for unused wheelchairs to be donated to the DPO’s (Disabled peoples Organizations) in Africa
- Build awareness of the importance of Community Based Rehabilitation
- Build awareness of the importance of physical exercise and playing recreational sports
- Build skill centres in Africa
- Generate sufficient funding to meet and increase the Trust’s ability to meet these aims
