Family of girl with cerebral palsy determined to raise money despite set back
A WA family is still determined to help their little girl with cerebral palsy, after state charity laws stopped a recent fundraising effort set up by a friend.
Isobel Lister, who is nine years old, was born prematurely at 31 weeks with Tracheoesophageal Fistula and required her first surgery when she was just twelve hours old.
At eight months she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
When she was three, Isobel was still unable to crawl, sit or walk and only said a couple of words.
However with the help of previous fundraising efforts, she was able to undergo stem cell treatment in Germany which made a significant improvement.
The Friends of Isobel website states: "She is able to walk short distances assisted by her walker and her speech has also made a mind-blowing improvement."
The next objective for the family is to travel to St Louis in the US for Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, in the hope that one day Isobel will be able to walk unaided without her walker.
However, for that to happen the family must raise $140,000.
A friend of the family Christina Thomas had been raising money through their carpet cleaning business.
"We decided that we would donate from our business $2 from every job that we do," Ms Thomas said.
Ms Thomas said she didn't increase her prices, instead taking the money out of her company's income.
However Western Australian charity licensing restrictions have meant the business have found it difficult to donate the funds raised.
Lanie Chopping from Consumer Protection WA said: "If you want to collect money for a charitable purpose you either need to have a license yourself, or you need to do so under the auspice of a licensed charity.
"Now that's not because of bureaucracy, that's because if a licensed charity collects money they will need to provide financial records to the department."
Ms Chopping says people who fund raise without a license are liable for prosecution.
"What we will do is link that person up with a licensed charity and those licensed charities will agree to take the money and then make sure that it goes to the charitable purpose for which it was collected," Ms Chopping said.
Christina Thomas said: "It kind of seems like we're not allowed to do what we want with our own money."
The Lister family is still determined to give their daughter every chance to reach her full potential.
Anyone who wishes to donate can head to the Friends of Isobel website.
