Disabled skiing

A new charitable project seeks to make skiing accessible to people with disabilities from Romania.

Ana-Maria Cononovici, 08.02.2022, 14:00

A project to make skiing available to
disabled persons was launched by an association called Caiac Smile, a group of people
who love sports and want to make it accessible to everyone. They started out
with adaptive rowing and have now moved on to skiing. Starting from the idea
that everyone would love to be able to ski, Caiac Smile Association created
adaptive ski equipment for people with locomotor disabilities that enables them
to go smoothy down the ski slopes.

Ionuţ Stancovici, the president of
the Caiac Smile Association, told us how it all began:

We created the Caiac Smile
Association in order to promote canoe-kayak slalom as a competitive sport. Working
with children, I remembered seeing a video a few years back about a person with
disabilities from the US who said he loved rowing. He was saying it’s the only
sport where he feels he is just like everybody else, because in rowing we mainly
use the upper body. So, we started working with people with disabilities, and
they all said the experience was great and became regular members of the club. Then
winter came and the season of winter sports. The disabled members of our club wanted
to continue doing sports over the winter and we started to look into ways of
making it possible for them to ski. The adaptive equipment on the market was
very expensive and we couldn’t afford it so we used a normal wheelchair instead,
removed its wheels and attached it to skis.

While in terms of equipment they
used a makeshift adaptive wheelchair, in terms of working with people with
disabilities, the Caiac Smile Association employed the professional techniques
used in the West. Ionuţ Stancovici, the president of the Association explains:

We used this adaptive equipment in
2019 in Maramures and Satu Mare and was a big success. Then I went to Austria,
where I trained for 10 days on how to teach people with disabilities to ski and
came across some wonderful cases there, families who were able to enjoy sports
together again thanks to adaptive equipment. It was very inspiring! I decided to
try to do this in Romania, as well. When I came back, I taught some of the club’s
members with special needs to ski by themselves. We took the equipment we
created to other places around the country and we started to get more and more
calls. So, we began a countrywide fund-raising campaign to buy the latest
models of mono skis so that they can be available in resorts around Romania.

The winter sports season has already
begun this year. We asked Ionuţ Stancovici, the president of the Caiac Smile
Association, about their schedule:

We’re in Cluj now, before that we
were in Vatra Dornei. The tournament is under way. The equipment has arrived,
we’re getting it from France, the whole project was a success. We began the
fund-raising campaign last November and with the help of several companies we’ve
already managed to buy 13 mono skis. Thanks to the many people who got involved
in this campaign to raise funds, we’re now able to travel all over the country
to promote this sport in Romania. The mono skis are available at different ski resorts
such that wherever they live around the country, disabled people can reach them
quite easily.

The disabled associations from
different regions of Romania are invited to encourage their members to take
part in activities tailored to their needs. Ionuţ Stancovici:

Everyone who wants to get involved
in our project is invited to go to our Facebook page and find out how they can
help, with donations and not only. They can also check out our schedule and
come and find us, to ski with us or to help as volunteers. Volunteers who are skiers
themselves can help disabled people who cannot use their arms, while volunteers
who can’t ski can help by driving people to the resorts or help with the meals.
The important thing is for everyone to enjoy themselves. Everything we do, whether
it’s sports or our charitable work, is done with enjoyment and fun. Come and
have fun with us!

Given the success of the project to
endow ski resorts in Romania with adaptive skiing equipment for people with disabilities,
the Caiac Smile Association, which initiated the project, also wants to promote
the use of kayaks for disabled persons on a number lakes around the country. (CM)