GIVING to other people is the best way to be a happy person, according to Mount Macedon resident Barbara Heine.
The 64-year-old has been awarded the Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia for service to the community through her work with hippotherapy - a health service division of the Riding for the Disabled Association - and to children and their families through her personal charity, the Kids and Families Foundation.
A unique approach to rehabilitation, hippotherapy is a treatment provided to children and adults with brain damage by specially trained physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists using equine movement.
Ms Heine said she was extremely surprised to learn she would receive the medal.
"It's a lovely recognition, but you don't do it for any other reason than it's a passion. I've been involved in philanthropy for a long time and I've always been a volunteer and that's why it's a humbling surprise.
"You don't expect it and when it's so unexpected, you think 'isn't it wonderful that someone noticed'?"
Ms Heine has been involved in hippotherapy for 20 years and been chairwoman of the hippotherapy committee for the Riding for the Disabled Association Australia, now known as RideAbility, since 2003.
She stumbled upon the therapy while living in the US in 1987 and brought it back to Australia in 1994.
"I've been a physio all my life and a horse person all my life," she said. "So it was like God had given me the gift of the perfect job. It was the most natural marriage for me of the two things I love and I love kids. I've seen it result in a wonderfully positive change in a child's ability to function. It didn't exist in Australia before then, so all the physios that practice here now I have trained."
Hippotherapy is available in Western Australia, Queensland and Victoria, but Ms Heine said her goal was to one day have a solid program running in every state. The program is on hold in Victoria as Ms Heine has been battling a rare and aggressive lymphoma for 18 months.
But she continues to work with the Kids and Families Foundation she founded in 2003.
Her personal foundation places a heavy focus on children who have been in foster care. Recipients of funds include Time for Kids Inc, Scope Victoria, Centre for Excellence in Child and Family Welfare scholarships, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, the Macedon Ranges Adventure Playground and Heads Together Camp. "Every penny that goes into it comes from me. It's my money and that's why I decided to be sole director," she said.
"It's lovely because I can make it very personal and that's how I want to keep it. It's not the big sums of money that make the difference, it's directing them to the right place."
With the support of her three children, Peta, Kate and Marc, Ms Heine said she hoped for remission from her illness so she could become more involved in her passions once again.
"This award is so amazing because most people don't know I do this.
"It's very special and it's come at a very unspecial time in my life and that's nice too."
Kids and Families Foundation: Project officer Peta Heine, PO Box 166, Mt Macedon, or 0419800607 or bhpt1@bigpond.com
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