THE wheels are in motion for a nine-year-old girl with a disability to get a life-changing eye-controlled wheelchair after the community donated thousands to her fundraiser.
A fundraising effort to raise money to purchase a wheelchair with eye-controlled Ability Drive system for Malita Norgrove, 9, who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, has reached its goal.
The fundraiser has so far raised more than £6,000, which will be matched by a charitable scheme at her school, Treloar's, in Alton. This means that an Ability Drive system costing roughly £12,000 will be able to be purchased.
The chair, which is not available on the NHS, will allow Malita to have independent movement over various terrains, and even race her brother.
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Sophie Norgrove, Malita's mother, said: "We are absolutely over the moon. We have now reached the point where, with the help from one charity, we've managed to reach the goal of being able to basically pay the invoice for this Ability Drive system.
"The support we've had from Link 2, from Chineham Village Club, from friends and family, everybody has been involved. Everybody's put into this.
"It's weird because it's your child, all these people come together. But it's not like they've come together for a big charity which is supportive of hundreds and thousands of children. They've come together just for your child, which is quite a surreal feeling. But it's also very lovely."
A giant cheque handover celebration saw scores of Malita's supporters, including Dilys Buchan and Rod Wisniewski, of Link2 and the Mayor of Basingstoke, Cllr Colin Phillimore.
More details of the fundraiser can be found by visiting: www.gofundme.com/f/malitas-movement-ability-drive-eyegaze-power-wheelchair
Sophie continued: "Ability Drive is a driving system that's built into the control system of the chair, but it's driven by her eyes, basically.
"It means she can steer it just like you would a joystick, but with eye controls instead. She can drive herself around the property as she likes without having to have an attendant pushing her, and with the added benefit of it being a power chair.
"You can go on different terrain, obviously, you can go a bit faster, you can go over gravel and sand and it just means it opens up a lot to her.
"I was actually speaking to my husband the other day and he was saying, 'I can imagine what's going to happen - She's going to end up racing her brother.'
"I can imagine him being like, 'Melita, I've set your power to 15 miles per hour.'"
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