Children in Distress - Fund-a-Physio, Ely is dynamic team

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Fund-a-Physio, Ely is dynamic team

Alyth Hughes sporting her entrant's label at Bucharest's recent city cycle event

In 2004, a small group of Ely residents came together to help Alyth Hughes share her expertise as a child physiotherapist, helping the children in St Margaret’s Hospice in Bucharest. They are a dynamic bunch; theirs is a comprehensive programme with charity auctions, tombola, coffee mornings, Christmas bazaars, charity dinners, home bakes and talks, cards, calendars and cookbook. You name it, they have tried it, discussed it, or are planning it and they certainly have caught the mind and touched the hearts of their friends, families and neighbours in Ely and across the Fens.

Over the years all their funds has been put to good use, apart from helping defray the travel costs of Alyth Hughes’s consultancy visits as senior consultant therapist for the charity. Without their efforts there would be no garden of sensory delights or Ely day pavilion at St Margaret’s; no bursary training programme for young therapists; fewer treatment rooms in St Nicholas Child Development Centres and much less professional equipment and the bi-annual medical professional workshop programme would have been severely curtailed ; the list is endless.

In all, this wonderful group of people have raised well over £22,500 to change lives and offer the chance to staff, students and children alike, to be the very best that they can be. Being well organised, most, if not all of the funds raised, has been Gift Aided so the actual sum is possibly nearer to £30,000. That is quite an achievement. The sad thing is that every single penny has been needed to ensure that CID’s therapy services are the beacon of hope they have become.

On the 29^th October, the Staff and Friends of Children in Distress will join Fund-a-Physio and its supporters for the charity’s Annual Service of Thanksgiving in Ely Cathedral, to give thanks for all that Children in Distress has achieved over the last 21 years and all that Fund-a–Physio has made possible. Well done everyone Fund-a-Physio and in Ely, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you would like know more of Fund-a-Physio activity please contact Alyth Hughes on

alythhughes@childrenindistress.org.uk