WALLAN man Adam Georgelin is Mitchell Shire’s Access and Inclusion Champion for his tireless work to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities.
Mr Georgelin, who was born with spina bifida, completed a herculean 150-kilometre journey of the Great Victorian Rail Trail entirely by wheelchair to raise money for Disability Sports and Recreation and the Robert Rose Foundation in late 2019.
Both organisations play a large role in the Victorian Wheelchair Football League, in which Mr Georgelin competes as a member of the Richmond Football Club.
On the back of his wheelchair push, Mr Georgelin decided he wanted to do more to help people with disabilities across the Mitchell Shire region.
He is now attempting to create a website linking people with disabilities and their carers to support services and each other.
“What I’m looking to do is link people with disabilities to services and appliances, so that basically anybody in the community can come to the website and find anything to do with disability, from assistance in the home through to jobs,” he said.
“I’ve got a mate who runs a recruitment agency that specialises in finding jobs for people with disabilities. That will be on the website as well.
“I’m also looking to have a Facebook-style group where people with disabilities and like-minded people can come together and talk about life in general. It would be a safe place where people with disabilities could talk about things that are going on in their life.
“People in wheelchairs tend to have a lot of stuff like urinary tract infections and pressure sores.
“People in general can be a bit embarrassed when you start talking about UTIs or pressure sores, so it’s a place where people can feel comfortable chatting about the personal stuff that goes along with having a disability.”
He said he also planned to continue fundraising and spreading awareness for people with disabilities.
“I’m hoping to align with other disability organisations the way I did with the wheelchair push and raise money with other fundraising exercises, whether it’s another wheelchair push or doing a stationary bike cycle for 24 hours and seeing how many kilometres I can do,” he said.
“I’d like to thank the Richmond footy club for giving me the opportunity to play for them and share my experiences of having a disability with the community. None of this would have happened without them.
“I’d also like to thank my family and a really big thank you to my wife, who has been a rock through the whole thing. She has given me ideas and when I felt low moments during the wheelchair push, she was on the bike right beside me encouraging me to keep going.”
