My Australia: Episode 09 - Part 2

Priya grew up in both India and Malaysia and describes her childhood as 'a bit chaotic'.
She also spent three years living in the United States when her mother was studying there.
She says she was a quiet child who loved watching TV.
I decided to come to Australia because it's a great country.
I've heard a lot of good things about the country. It's very multicultural.
It's got great universities especially for what I wanted to do which was business.
Where I live now is actually in an apartment.
It's very close to uni as well it's also very close to my work. So it's extremely convenient.
I've got two wonderful housemates from Norway.
Rif is also living here. We're just in the phase of sort of moving everything in so it
looks a little messy.
I met Rif in Malaysia.
We decided to come to Australia, which is probably one of the best choices we've made.
To relax I like talking to my flatmates, being on the laptop watching movies, TV shows, talking
on the phone.
I work full time at Datacom.
I'm a customer service representative but I would love to join an organisation like
United Nations.
That would be my goal but I don't think that's going to happen.
If I had a choice I would definitely live in Australia.
I like the fact that it's very laid back, it's very tolerant.
You can just sort of be yourself.
I love doing volunteer work because it's something that's very close to my heart.
I really think that I've been very privileged in my life so I just believe that it's time
to sort of return that goodness that I've had.
I'm going to volunteer for Riding for the Disabled.
The sort of work I'm going to be doing today would be spending time with a child with Down's
Syndrome, providing them with a lot of attention.
Hi Priya, I'm Nicole, how are you?
Hi Nicole. I'm good thank you.
That's good. Welcome to RDA.
Thank you.
My role at RDA Tall Timbers is staff coach and the other part of my job is to actually
run riding sessions.
Okay Priya, this is one of our shirts that you can wear today.
It's a lot warmer than what I'm wearing.
We'll go for a walk around and I'll show you the centre.
Great.
Okay.
This tells you what's going to happen today.
Since I've come to Australia I haven't had a chance to pursue these sort of activities
so this is a really great opportunity for me.
... and Matthew needs lots of encouragement and high fives when he does something good
and just confidence building.
Okay, so you'll be able to talk to him along those lines.
Well, this organisation provides riding or any horse-related activities to people with
disabilities
and we cater for somewhere between 1500 and 1700 riders.
When we're walking with Matthew is it going to be a ...
She's just blowing her nose.
Okay.
We couldn't do without the volunteers.
We have probably about 1700 volunteers in the state and they're dedicated and they don't
let us down and the come every time and we rely on them.
Okay, so I'm just going to introduce you to Mary.
Priya, this is Mary.
Hello Mary.
Hello Priya. Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
So Mary's going to be leading Angel and you'll be walking alongside Angel with Matthew.
Okay.
How long have you been doing this for?
I've been a volunteer for 18 years with Tall Timbers and I thoroughly enjoy it.
You have the interaction with the children plus you have the bonus with the horses so,
if you like animals, you get both which is great.
Okay, so, Angel's over here
And be as close to the horse as possible.
Yep and just stay in front of her shoulder.
It's all right.
Who's that?
Who's that? That's the camera man.
Hello camera man.
Hello camera man.
Hello, I'm Ian.
They just love being on the horses and just having a go and, you know, it's an experience
that a lot of them don't get to do.
For the first time in their life they are higher than you and I.
They're looking down at us instead of always having to look up.
They get this look of wonderment really in their eyes many times,
and I think it's a personal growth thing for everybody including us as people being involved
trying to help out.
Every day, every lesson there is something that makes you smile about what you've done
and that's just the best thing of all.
Priya.
Okay Matthew, here we go, planting flowers.
I think Matthew's favourite task was picking up the flowers and planting it in the sponge
sort of object.
Yeah, he had a lot of fun doing them and he did a great job.
Good job Matthew. High five.
When Matthew was given a ball and the ball had various numbers on the corners and he
would then throw the ball
and the number which came up, that would be the amount of steps that the horse had to
take, and Matthew would count along to the number of steps.
He did a wonderful job. He's great with numbers and we had a great time.
High five.
Well done.
I got along very well with Matthew personally.
I think, I honestly think he did like me and we had a great time.
I think he was a bit wary on the horse. He felt like he was falling off a little bit.
I fall down.
You're falling down?
I've got you, you won't fall down, don't worry.
Okay. Okay?
I think we managed that problem and ended up having a great time.
Yeah, I did it.
Yes you did. You did a great job.
It's marvellous to see Priya wanting to volunteer with this group and she is obviously enjoying
it.
And I think that's great and I think the other volunteers, who are regulars with us, appreciate
and did appreciate I think Priya's involvement.
Priya went well, yeah.
She was open to everything that we asked her to do and she was confident around the horses
so that's always good
and she had a good rapport with Matthew by the end of the session, so that was good.
Bye Priya.
Bye Matthew.
And Matthew was saying her name so she must have done well.
Every day, every rider gives you some reason to come back and that's why we stay.
We come for the horses but we stay for the kids. It's just wonderful.
It's a great organisation. I think it's doing a lot of good for kids with disabilities.
Did you have fun today Matthew?
Yes.
Yes?
I would definitely think about doing more with them in the future.
Once I'm free during December, hopefully I can come here on Saturdays and maybe ride
the horse myself one day.
Looks like Priya really made Matthew's day.
Up next I'm going to try and find the answer to a question I've always wondered about:
what exactly do girls do on a girls' day out?