In April 2011, the doors will open on a new Disability Hub, providing a purpose built centre for disabled children and young people across East Surrey. The Disability Hub will be within a wider community centre, providing an integrated environment where local disabled children and non-disabled children play alongside each other.

The Disability Hub will house all our Yippee Playschemes and Yip 4 Youth Leisure Schemes for disabled children and young people and act as a springboard for a while new raft of services.

The Hub will have a sensory room, soft play room and adapted outside play area as well as a number of multi-use rooms for sports, cooking and messy play.  Here disabled children will be able to enjoy a safe and stimulating environment where they can make friends and gain skills for independence, supported by specially trained staff and volunteers.

The total cost of the project is £690,000.  This will remodel and refurbish the existing building to provide a bright, modern and airy space for disabled children and young people, with specialist equipment that will help them develop physically and emotionally.  The hub will also benefit parents, giving them a break from the demands of caring, safe in the knowledge that their children are being well cared for and having fun.

We are fortunate to have received generous support from Surrey County Council’s Aiming High for Disabled Children programme and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council and we have been able to commit funds from our own Challenge Fund.  This means that work on the fabric of the building will begin in September 2010.

But we need your support to provide the specialist equipment that is needed to allow us to support profoundly disabled children or those with challenging behaviour that need high levels of support.  Please help by donating what you can.

• £500    can pay for specially adapted puzzles and toys with large, brightly coloured knobs for children who have difficulty with vision or co-ordination.
• £750    could pay for a light projector to project a rotation of images on the walls of the sensory room, so that we can provide a flexible, ever-changing environment.
• £1,000 will provide bubble tubes for our sensory room, providing a calming yet stimulating sensation for disabled children.
• £1,500 will provide for a variety of shapes for the soft play room, where children can build a tower of shapes to climb before falling onto a cushioned floor.  For children who use a wheelchair they love the freedom of movement this allows them.
• £3,000 will pay for a bathroom hoist so that disabled children and young people can be safely assisted in going to the toilet or being changed.
• £5,000 will pay for interactive sensory equipment, where disabled children can change the sounds or colours of the sensory room by moving a switching or making a noise, so that the most severely disabled child can have a sense of control over their own environment.
• £7,500 will pay for a hoist to enable disabled children and young people to move from room to room and fully participate in activities.
• £10,000 will contribute to our outside play area, where specially adapted playground equipment enables disabled children to climb, slide, swing and play or enjoy sand and water play.

If you would like to make a donation towards this appeal, please email Sue Stockman ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or telephone 01737 779979.

Clubs and organisations wishing to fundraise for this appeal should contact Sue Stockman ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Kim Roderick ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) who will be able to provide fundraising ideas and materials to support your fundraising efforts.