Participants in a ‘peer to peer’ course run in Fiji by Motivation Australia in partnership with the Fiji Spinal Injuries Association in 2017.

Kylie Mines and Motivation Australia: change in motion

By Ashlee Betteridge
14 January 2019

For the estimated 1.7 million Pacific islanders living with a disability, services on the ground are thin. The latest story in our Aid Profiles series looks at the work of Kylie Mines and Motivation Australia in improving access to rehabilitation and assistive devices across the region.

Kylie Mines, an occupational therapist, started the organisation in 2007 after working across Asia, Europe and the Pacific. It has now grown to a team of 12, working from a beachside cottage in Adelaide.

From their initial projects in Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, MA now also works in Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia. And while strong local partnerships continue to be the primary focus of their work, the organisation has an increasingly significant voice within the regional and global dialogue on disability and inclusion thanks to their active collaboration with national governments and influential bodies, such as the World Health Organisation and the Pacific Disability Forum.

Read the Motivation Australia Aid Profile here, written by Cleo Fleming, or catch up on the full series.

 

About the author/s

Ashlee Betteridge
Ashlee Betteridge was the Manager of the Development Policy Centre until April 2021. She was previously a Research Officer at the centre from 2013-2017. A former journalist, she holds a Master of Public Policy (Development Policy) from ANU and has development experience in Indonesia and Timor-Leste. She now has her own consultancy, Better Things Consulting, and works across several large projects with managing contractors.

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