“This car has given us freedom”

Eva is 10-years old and lives in Norfolk with her mum, dad, younger brother and sister. The family received a grant for the Advance Payment of their car. This car enables them to travel together as a family of five - something they had difficulty with before.

Bright and beautiful

“Eva is a really bright girl,” says her mum, Jemma. “She enjoys going to school, she’s good at maths and likes playing clapping games with her brother and sister. Her favourite colour is yellow, but she likes to have her nails painted with a different colour for every finger.”

“Our daughter was born with CHARGE syndrome,” says Eva’s dad, Steven. “This means she is profoundly deaf, visually impaired and struggles to walk on her own for any distance. She also has a tracheostomy, and with this, comes various equipment to carry around.”

Space to grow

As the family have grown, and the children have got bigger, travelling around has become trickier, due to limited boot space.

“Before having this Motability vehicle, we had difficulty going anywhere as a whole family by car,” says Steven. “The car we had wasn’t big enough to carry all the equipment we need for Eva, as well as everything else you need for a family of five. If we went on longer journeys together, we borrowed our parents’ car. Ours was only suitable for short journeys with just one, or two, of our children.”

Travelling together

After calling Motability Foundation for assessment, Steven was told they qualified for a grant. “The Peugeot 5008 was the only car that met our requirements, but it had extra costs,” he says. “Without the grant, we would have struggled to afford it.

“It's no exaggeration to say the grant has changed our lives. This car has given us freedom to go to the park with the kids’ scooters, the local beaches, or even the supermarket together as a family. Because of the extra space, we can even go on longer trips with luggage, and bring equipment and supplies, so we can stay overnight.”