Despite a disruptive year in 2020, TIMA’s school holiday and Thursday night basketball programmes have seen at 20% rise in participation numbers as well as an uplift in girls attending.

Kaye Nordstorm (director) and her team of leaders provide fun, educational, and challenging activities for their participants through the means of basketball. The integration of able-bodied participants alongside participants with disabilities, allows the tamariki’s disabilities to be normalised and gives them a safe environment to be active at their own pace.

Kaye’s main mission is to, "Transform lives through adapted movement,” and this is exactly what she achieves with the TIMA programme.

After starting the programme five years ago, Kaye says it has allowed participants to gain a strong sense of identity and belonging, along with building their confidence, giving them an appreciation for being active with others and providing valuable leadership opportunities.

Kaye and her team at TIMA applied for additional funding through Sport New Zealand’s Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa fund. This funding was crucial for both the TIMA Basketball Programme and the TIMA Holiday Programme (which runs for four days every school holiday break, January, April, July, and October).

With this additional funding Kaye and her team will be able to provide enhanced experiences for participants by increasing participant scholarships and purchasing more specialised equipment for the programmes. Being able to employ more people to assist with the running of the programme and transportation of participants has been another pivotal success, as transportation to and from the programme has proven to be a challenge for participants in the past.

Kaye describes the Tū Manawa funding, along with support from Sport Canterbury as being an, “Absolute life saver,” in ensuring the programme can continue to run and reach out to more participants.

Kallum (TIMA leader) echoes this, saying everyone who attends the TIMA programmes are thankful for the funding, knowing it will allow them to get more equipment, help with venue costs and relieve the stress of whether the programme will be able to continue long term.

The most recent TIMA Leader, Riley Stenton, a year 13 student at Haeata Community Campus, joined the TIMA leadership group in 2020 and is now a prime example of TIMA’s goal to transform lives through their programmes.

After joining the group, Riley has become a casual employee for TIMA, and Kaye describes him as being, “Super keen,” and a leader who stood out as being enthusiastic, caring, and keen to learn and develop his skills further.

From this, Riley has now taken on an Inclusions Leadership position at Haeta, where he continues to push integration and inclusion of ākonga (students) with disabilities through the curriculum for both Haeta Community Campus and Ferndale School.

Kaye says he is proving to be, “A strong TIMA leader and an even stronger advocate for youth with disabilities.”

She continues to say that this goes to show that participants who have a disability can be just as capable at being an effective leader as participants without a disability.

TIMA has had at least five previous participants who are now adult TIMA leaders, examples of these are; Lilian Exton who now runs TIMA’s boccia sessions and has also taken over some administration and advertising tasks. Former Special Olympian, Bradley Garner, 24, now helps coach basketball and Kaye says he knows more about the game than she does. Wairemu Manahi, 20, since first coming along to TIMA in 2016, has now developed into one of TIMA’s strongest leaders.

TIMA leader Kallum, loves being part of the team especially as he can play an important role in the programme’s great sense of community. Kallum enjoys seeing kids like himself that come to the programme, progress into becoming leaders and make new friends.

He says, “The programme blows your expectations totally away. People come in for the first time not knowing anyone, but they leave the day as best friends.”

“Kaye is amazing” are the comments constantly heard from parents on the sidelines and it becomes very clear that the participants, leaders, and community truly value the work that Kaye and her team at TIMA provide.

Parents are grateful for the TIMA programme as they say there is nothing else like this in their community, the setting is specifically tailored to the participants needs as well as being in an inclusive environment with people of a similar ages.

Kaye is able to increase the opportunities for the participants to experience and benefit from regular activity and skill development while also increasing their social interaction opportunities, positive self-worth and identity.

Read more Tū Manawa case studies here