An annual grant from the Camphill Foundation to the Camphill-Orion Fund helps disabled children in South Africa receive speech and physiotherapy as well as specialist treatment and assessment.
Michael Lauppe, from the William Morris Camphill Community in Gloucestershire, fundraises in the UK for the Orion Organisation which is based in the town of Atlantis in the Western Cape.
Orion runs a day care centre for children with physical and mental disabilities, has group homes for 60 adults with disabilities, and a frail care centre for 10 sick, aged and frail people with disabilities. It was established in 1982 and inspired by Camphill, with one of its founders being Renate Sleigh, daughter of Camphill founder Karl König.
The Camphill-Orion Fund pays for two therapists to work with the children in the day care centre each week. Currently some 20-30 children attend each day with transport bringing them from as far as 50 or 60 miles.
In addition to the therapies they provide, the therapists have identified children who would benefit from specialist treatment normally only available in Cape Town and arranged for specialists to visit the day centre.
Without the money raised by Camphill communities in the UK and the grant from the Camphill Foundation, the children, many of them with severe multiple disabilities, would not receive the therapies and treatments that make such a difference in their lives.