(21 Apr 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Windhoek, Namibia – 19 February 2025
1. Various of boy riding horse with Susan de Meyer giving instructions
2. Wide of boy on a horse assisted by groom
3. Pan of de Meyer giving instructions to children on horses
4. Wide of children with hands raised on top of horse
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Susan de Meyer, Director at Enabling Through the Horse:
“It is an immense advantage to all disabled kids. It helps them to balance, it helps them with their equilibrium, it helps them to get a good posture so that they can sit behind a desk and do their schoolwork. It helps them with speech disabilities. They start talking when they ride, because the horse is an extension of the body if you sit on it.”
6. Wide of De Meyer talking to some of the children
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Susan de Meyer, Director at Enabling Through the Horse:
"All of them cannot do this. They are sort of scared on the horse and then, as you go on and you know the disabilities, you know that you can do specific things, like the cerebral palsy guys – they have to sit on the horse, but the one side is stronger than the other side. So you must mind that and help them."
8. Wide of De Meyer assisting a child with his headgear
9. Various of boy being assisted to get on a horse by de Meyer and the groom
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Chriszell Louw, Teacher at Dagbreek School:
“The change that I’ve seen with the learners are significant, if I can say so myself. We have a learner that likes to talk a lot. When we come here she knows she has to keep quiet. She sits in her place and some of them also you see they are more open, they are happy. They were scared, some of them were very scared when they started with the horse riding but now they are very excited. If they hear we’re going to the horses they are very excited and they kind of just want to go by themselves.”
11. Various of girl being assisted to get onto horse
12. Various girl riding horse guided by the groom
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Frankle, Chairperson of the Namibia Equestrian Federation:
“I guess parents, when they initially think of their children climbing on the back of a fairly big animal, there must be a little bit of fear, a little bit of worry, is this going to be OK for my child? But that was very, very quickly overcome as soon as both parents, teachers and the community at large started to see almost the immediate benefits for these children through the program.”
14. Wide of boy getting onto horse unassisted
15. Close of the horse’s legs as it moves
16. Wide of boy riding horse
STORYLINE:
LEADIN:
A small riding school in Namibia is dramatically changing the lives of children whose lives have been marred by serious disabilities.
Riding and bonding with horses is refreshing their outlook on life, physically and psychologically, with some potentially discovering a future in equestrian sport.
STORYLINE:
Twice a week, Susan De Meyer welcomes children from the Hope Village Orphanage and Dagbreek School for Children with Disabilities at the Bergheim Country Estate on the outskirts of Namibia’s capital Windhoek.
They’re here to take part in the ‘Enabling through the Horse Program’, devised for children with special needs.
They’re learning equestrian skills as a form of therapy to assist in developing and improving their cognitive and psycho-motor functions.
These youngsters aged between five and 15 years have various disabilities and development disorders including cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorder and foetal alcohol syndrome.
AP video by Vitalio Angula
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