A project to make skiing available to
\ndisabled persons was launched by an association called Caiac Smile, a group of people
\nwho love sports and want to make it accessible to everyone. They started out
\nwith adaptive rowing and have now moved on to skiing. Starting from the idea
\nthat everyone would love to be able to ski, Caiac Smile Association created
\nadaptive ski equipment for people with locomotor disabilities that enables them
\nto go smoothy down the ski slopes. <\/p>\n
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Ionu\u0163 Stancovici, the president of
\nthe Caiac Smile Association, told us how it all began:<\/p>\n
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We created the Caiac Smile
\nAssociation in order to promote canoe-kayak slalom as a competitive sport. Working
\nwith children, I remembered seeing a video a few years back about a person with
\ndisabilities from the US who said he loved rowing. He was saying it’s the only
\nsport where he feels he is just like everybody else, because in rowing we mainly
\nuse the upper body. So, we started working with people with disabilities, and
\nthey all said the experience was great and became regular members of the club. Then
\nwinter came and the season of winter sports. The disabled members of our club wanted
\nto continue doing sports over the winter and we started to look into ways of
\nmaking it possible for them to ski. The adaptive equipment on the market was
\nvery expensive and we couldn’t afford it so we used a normal wheelchair instead,
\nremoved its wheels and attached it to skis.<\/p>\n
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While in terms of equipment they
\nused a makeshift adaptive wheelchair, in terms of working with people with
\ndisabilities, the Caiac Smile Association employed the professional techniques
\nused in the West. Ionu\u0163 Stancovici, the president of the Association explains:<\/p>\n
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We used this adaptive equipment in
\n2019 in Maramures and Satu Mare and was a big success. Then I went to Austria,
\nwhere I trained for 10 days on how to teach people with disabilities to ski and
\ncame across some wonderful cases there, families who were able to enjoy sports
\ntogether again thanks to adaptive equipment. It was very inspiring! I decided to
\ntry to do this in Romania, as well. When I came back, I taught some of the club’s
\nmembers with special needs to ski by themselves. We took the equipment we
\ncreated to other places around the country and we started to get more and more
\ncalls. So, we began a countrywide fund-raising campaign to buy the latest
\nmodels of mono skis so that they can be available in resorts around Romania.<\/p>\n
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The winter sports season has already
\nbegun this year. We asked Ionu\u0163 Stancovici, the president of the Caiac Smile
\nAssociation, about their schedule:<\/p>\n
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We’re in Cluj now, before that we
\nwere in Vatra Dornei. The tournament is under way. The equipment has arrived,
\nwe’re getting it from France, the whole project was a success. We began the
\nfund-raising campaign last November and with the help of several companies we’ve
\nalready managed to buy 13 mono skis. Thanks to the many people who got involved
\nin this campaign to raise funds, we’re now able to travel all over the country
\nto promote this sport in Romania. The mono skis are available at different ski resorts
\nsuch that wherever they live around the country, disabled people can reach them
\nquite easily.<\/p>\n
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The disabled associations from
\ndifferent regions of Romania are invited to encourage their members to take
\npart in activities tailored to their needs. Ionu\u0163 Stancovici:<\/p>\n
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Everyone who wants to get involved
\nin our project is invited to go to our Facebook page and find out how they can
\nhelp, with donations and not only. They can also check out our schedule and
\ncome and find us, to ski with us or to help as volunteers. Volunteers who are skiers
\nthemselves can help disabled people who cannot use their arms, while volunteers
\nwho can’t ski can help by driving people to the resorts or help with the meals.
\nThe important thing is for everyone to enjoy themselves. Everything we do, whether
\nit’s sports or our charitable work, is done with enjoyment and fun. Come and
\nhave fun with us!<\/p>\n
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Given the success of the project to
\nendow ski resorts in Romania with adaptive skiing equipment for people with disabilities,
\nthe Caiac Smile Association, which initiated the project, also wants to promote
\nthe use of kayaks for disabled persons on a number lakes around the country. (CM)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new charitable project seeks to make skiing accessible to people with disabilities from Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":137013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42520],"tags":[40156],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-137012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inside-romania","tag-skiing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n