Jess Geosits and Toby Kable

I would like to firstly congratulate my constituent, Jess Geosits, for being awarded the top grant in Beyond Bank Australias annual community entrepreneur program.

The grant was awarded to Jess and her team for the development of EzyAid, a device created to assist patients, carers, and medical professionals with the challenges of naso and oral gastric feeding tubes.

Having experienced first-hand the struggles of tube feeding her son Matthew, Jess started a company which developed a product to improve the lives of tube-fed people around the world. The current method used to adhere a feeding tube to the face of a patient is both time consuming and traumatising for patient and carer. EzyAid has been developed to overcome these difficulties, particularly for tube fed babies once they have returned home. The current method used to adhere a feeding tube to the face of a patient is quite time consuming, especially for parents of tube fed babies who have returned home.

The $30,000 grant will allow the prototype for EzyAid to be completed, and secure a patent in Australia, Europe and the United States.

Secondly, congratulations to Toby Kable, for being named the Hunter Water Hero of the Year for 2017.

With a focus on cricket and touch rugby, Toby founded sporting organisation All Ability Sports Coaching, which allows sportspeople with an intellectual disability to be involved in teamwork and improve their sporting skills.

Whilst sport is the main focus of All Ability Sports Coaching, Toby envisioned, and succeeded, in achieving the greater goal of building the self-esteem and confidence of players.

Tobys initiative has grown from being the first local cricket and league tag teams for people living with an intellectual disability, into a small sole-trading business that it is today an incredible achievement for such a young member of our community!

Toby has successfully proved the importance of sport as a powerful way for people to connect, and I commend him for his proactive approach to skill development for the intellectually disabled in our community.