This Girl Can: Tash's story
For the past month television adverts, social media posts and billboards across the land have advertised Sport England’s latest campaign This Girl Can. It’s a sassy celebration of women everywhere no matter how they exercise, how they look, or how sweaty they get.
The national charity, the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) is supporting This Girl Can to ensure more disabled women can get involved in the campaign.
In January, Sport England’s latest Active People Survey was published. It showed that 121,700 fewer disabled people and 125,000 fewer women are regularly taking part in sport. EFDS believes that the results reinforce the importance of understanding and responding to disabled people’s needs and preferences much more effectively.
Campaigns like This Girl Can will play an important role in increasing the numbers of all active women, especially those living with impairments and health conditions.
Not many teenagers can say they have sailed the 60 miles around the Isle of Wight, across the English Channel, 450 miles around England’s South West coast and scaled a mountain all before they turned 18.
But Natasha Lambert is no ordinary teenager.
Tash- This Girl Can
Natasha, or Tash as she is known to her family and friends, was born with quadriplegic athertoid cerebral palsy, which affects her speech and control of her movements. Essentially the messages from Natasha’s brain don't go to her muscles.
Natasha uses a wheelchair and a pioneering special walking aid - a body brace with four wheels - called a Hart Walker. She needs help 24 hours a day.
Yet ever since discovering sailing at the age of nine, as a passenger on a holiday with the Calvert Trust in Devon, the Isle of Wight teen has been pushing herself to the limits on the sea and her efforts have raised over £38,000 for charity.
For Natasha, who turns 18 in June 2015, sailing has changed her life.
Using a special programme to help her type on her computer, she explains:
“Sailing for me is a mental challenge. I have to constantly assess the situation and try to ensure my boat 'Miss Isle Too' performs to her optimum. I need to be stretched mentally and sailing does that for me, and then some! I always feel a sense of achievement every time I go out on the water, there is always something new to learn, to see, to experience.”
Natasha sails using only her mouth, through what is called a ‘sip and puff’ system.
After successfully testing a sip and puff system on a model boat, her dad Gary, an electrician, spent months creating a system operated by a single straw inside of a mountain bike helmet for Natasha to control her boat. By sipping across the tube or blowing down it she is able her to steer the boat and alter the sails.
Her 21ft yacht Miss Isle Too has also been adapted to carry self-righting inflatable bags, which can be manually deployed and will also deploy in a capsize.
After that first introduction, Natasha continued sailing closer to her Cowes home through the Even Keel Project near Portsmouth and her local RYA Sailability group, part of the nationwide programme from sailing’s national governing body, the RYA, providing opportunities for disabled people to learn to sail and sail regularly.
But it was once Gary’s engineering talents had paid dividends that the nautical world really did become her oyster. She now generally sails three times a week from March to November, in addition to whatever charity challenge she is undertaking that year.
Natasha continues: “If you are looking for an inclusive sport, look no further than sailing, it has everything, its exciting exhilarating challenging and more.
“I am described as severely disabled as I usually need help 24 hours a day for daily living but I can get out to sea, challenge myself, the elements and challenge perceptions. There are no barriers in sailing.
“When I'm sailing the only restrictions is my own ability to make Miss Isle Too perform. It’s the most liberating feeling there is. The sea can be harsh. You have to know your own limits and ability and go challenge yourself!”
Her last challenge – Sea and Summit 2014 – saw Natasha spend a month sailing from Cowes around the Dorset, Devon and Cornish coastlines before crossing the Bristol Channel to Swansea and climbing the 2,907ft Pen Y Fan in the Brecon Beacons.
This phenomenal achievement won her Daily Mirror Pride of Sport Charity Challenge of the Year Award in December 2014.
Although she doesn’t have to be superfit for her challenges, she does train hard before each sail to make sure she is mentally alert and ready for the challenge. Natasha does daily physiotherapy and most days walks at least a mile using her Hart Walker. She also loves geocaching, swimming and snokelling and has already stated her ambition to climb more mountains, go skiing and also try scuba diving.
But the benefits of being so active are so much more than simply physical.
As Natasha concludes: “Through sailing I have met so many people who have inspired me. I love spending time at the marina, chatting to all sorts of people and I’ve been to all sorts of events and parties.
“People with more severe disabilities don’t always have a large social circle, but with sailing it doesn’t matter where I might go in the world I will have something in common with someone, a sport I love.
“I know it sounds a bit cheesy but sailing literally has been life changing for me.”
