Yiasou Care, a family run organisation who provides care to special needs children, adults, their parents and carers, and the elderly, recently held a fundraiser to help raise money toward the purchase of specially modified mobility and transport vehicle to aid and to get their clients back into the community.
The fundraising gala dinner at Vanilla Lounge in Oakleigh on Saturday March 9, saw attendees enjoy a five-course meal, open bar, coffee and dessert together with live entertainment and an auction of special items donated by loyal local businesses who support the cause.
$17,000 was raised to help toward their goal in buying the vehicle, with a Go Fund Me page also set up that has seen over $4000 donated so far.
General Manager of Yiasou Care Steven Ginnis says the fundraiser event and the support they received was “incredible”.
“The thing we’re most proud of is how much the Greek community and the community of Oakleigh got behind us,” he told Neos Kosmos.
“We’re a small Greek family that have spent most of our lives dedicated to raising our children and looking after our disabled daughter, to receive that much support from the community, the Greek community, was amazing.”
Steven alongside his wife Barbara (director) created Yiasou Care two years ago because they have a disabled daughter of their own and could see gaps in the industry.
They had to learn to care for her, so Barbara became a qualified carer as did their other daughter Ilianna.
Ilianna, is also a director for Yiasou Care and is currently completing her PhD on neurodiversity and inclusion in architecture and in the care space.
She created a new form of communication for disabled people that are non-verbal. A pictorial system where they can show pictures to identify what they want or what they’re asking for.
One of Yiasou Care’s clients is a 34-year-old who was too shy and has never ordered a drink before.
“Recently we were able to get him so comfortable out in the community, he’s now able to go and order his own milkshakes using the pictorial system my daughter came up with,” Steven said.
Now that this system has been created to help communicate in social settings, Yiasou Care hope to get the special modified mobility vehicle to get them out and about.
“What we noticed was that a lot of children, especially non-verbal children, a lot of disabled people, participants of the NDIS and a lot of the elderly, were finding it difficult to participate in social activities,” Steven said.
“It was hard to get them there because you can’t just put them in a normal vehicle. They move around, or they don’t wear their seat belt. Some people are in wheelchairs, so it was impossible to manoeuvre them easily.”
He says they have noticed more progress the more you can get them out and involved in activities and wants to be able to take their clients to concerts, church, shopping centres and any other social events.
“We want you to feel as if the person that we’re caring for are members of the family.”
“We don’t see the disability; we see the ability of that person. We see their individual goals and try and help them achieve it. We want to set up long term relationships with those people and care for them for a long time.”
Steven says it’s also important that the unsung heroes are supported, the parents, siblings, other family and carers who look after someone in need.
“It was never about becoming a business, we weren’t interested in what we earned out of it, that wasn’t the primary goal for us.”
“We know what we wanted for our daughter and how we want her raised, and we don’t want her to miss out on anything and have the best of everything and to be cared for like family when she’s out of the house, but we wanted everyone to have that.”
