Accessible environment: how to change the world, sitting in a wheelchair

The author of the social project "Step by Step to the Dream" Natalia Kaptelinina.

We learned about Natalia Kaptelinina when the first fitness room in the city for people with disabilities opened in Krasnoyarsk. It turned out that the author of this idea and its “implementer” is the very Natalya who was able to step over her limited abilities to help others.

- Natalia, I'm sorry for such a question, but how did you end up in a wheelchair? What happened to you?

- In 2007, I went on tour to another city and got into a car accident. I have an economic education, but before the injury I was involved in sports, was a fitness instructor, and danced in Todes' ballet Alla Duhova. The accident was terrible, I received a fracture of the spine in the neck, there was a complete paralysis. Now there are more than 20 operations behind him and the struggle for life, not like movements.

At first I did not realize what had happened. There was only one thought - to tolerate a little and everything will pass. But a day, two, a month, another passed, and here I had to “grit my teeth” and fight against all the unfavorable forecasts. The character and willpower turned on: it’s so easy not to break me. Before the accident, I charged with life, the energy of the people around me. It turned out that after the injury it only intensified. I am sure that every person can achieve almost everything that he dreams about, if he is ready to work very hard.

In absolutely everything, I depend on my attendant, because even my fingers do not work for me. I can’t get dressed myself, take a bottle of water, and practically I can’t do anything from the household.

But I adapted, for example, I print a lot for work - special “rectifiers” for index fingers help. I can work hard and provide for myself. In general, my motto in life is this: if your hands do not work, then this only means that you have to earn healthy hands near you.

- Who was with you after the tragedy? Who supported?

“Of course, my family.” This is the support for which you simply have no right to be weak. All the care, all the minute duty around me for days, months, years was provided precisely by my relatives, my mom, my relatives. Also, my friends supported everything that was in their power, no one turned away. Even a charity concert was held, the dancers of Krasnoyarsk raised money for my operation. I am very grateful to everyone.

- Natalya, now you continue to work in the sports sector, run the Step by step fitness bikini school. How do you deal?

- A year before the injury, the Step by Step fitness club appeared, but then I flew out of the workflow for more than 4 years. But I found strength, the opportunity to return to business, even in a wheelchair. Moreover, there was so much internal strength that the team only strengthened, and in 2012 the first Step by Step fitness bikini school in Russia was born, which has no analogues so far. School athletes have won all the major fitness competitions in the Russian Federation, but this is not the main thing.

We teach girls, girls, women to be strong and win. Do not give in to difficulties and go forward no matter what. This is the experience that I can pass on to our pupils. By personal example.

- And when did you come up with the idea of a gym for people with disabilities in your native Krasnoyarsk? Have you been looking for a gym for yourself and realized that there is nothing? Or immediately decided to engage in a community project to help others?

- When I got injured and started going to rehabilitation centers, looking for that “magic pill” that would lift me to my feet, I met a huge number of people. We all talked in social networks, and I constantly wanted to help, tell about all the means of rehabilitation. So the Vkontakte group “Useful Tips” was born, which now consists of more than 3,500 people with disabilities from all over Russia. After all, if one person can go to Moscow for treatment, then what about the one who lives in the village? How to "get up" them? Therefore, everything that I found out, published there and answered the questions of the guys, asking questions from specialists in hospitals. But network by network, but how to help in the real world?

I know about the experience of rehabilitation centers, but it surprised me why there is still no place for sports in my hometown where a person in a wheelchair could come to work out? Do not heal, mind you, do not rehabilitate, but simply maintain your health. By supporting healthy people, I realized how I can help people with injuries. And I tried to implement it. Happiness, that I managed to take the first step in this direction.

- How did you create this gym? Who helped: authorities, businessmen?

- When thoughts, desires, goals fell on paper and a clear plan of action appeared, we went to the administration of Krasnoyarsk. My mother with this letter went around almost all the offices, trying to "reach out" to the officials. We were heard by the head of the city Edham Shukrievich Akbulatov, he supported the project and the matter moved forward. They connected both Krasport and social security, examined municipal sports facilities and, highlighting the most affordable, concentrated their forces on it, finalized it. So in August 2016, the first groups for people with disabilities started working on the basis of the Rassvet municipal sports club.

The trainer was provided by Krasport, the children are delivered to the gym by the city’s social protection in transport with a lift at the expense of sponsorship. And in October, we opened the second hall in another district of the city.

I am sure that only together we can move things from a dead point. If the whole environment is inaccessible, then solve the issue of delivery to the hall and help a person believe in themselves. After all, these classes give not so much health, although this is important, how much support and hope, the desire to change something. Now the disabled person himself can join the process of improving the life of the city, and will not just wait for help.

- Do you play sports yourself?

- No Unfortunately. At the moment I have 5 jobs, a serious business, a team that I can’t fail. I get up very early and go to bed very late, work seven days a week. Once a year I go to a rehabilitation center for treatment, because the body just starts to malfunction. Of course, this is wrong. Of course, I’m just ruining my health, because the human body is not adapted to sit for 5-6 hours in one position at the monitor and work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Yes, every year the pain in the body, the aches are getting stronger. I hope that by automating all the processes, I can find time for my health.

- What problems with an accessible environment can be solved now, without global interventions at the state level?

- It was difficult at the very beginning to get things off the ground, and after five months to ensure that it did not “stall”, so that the very first room would appear and classes would begin. It is difficult now to convey to people with disabilities information about such a free room, because personal data is confidential, and people, reconciled with an injury, will not get out of their holes. But every day I will get up, overcome my limited opportunities and move forward, and I really hope that my supporters will become more and more every day.It is together that we can change the reality surrounding us, everyone should work on an accessible environment.

Indeed, simply, without putting your car in an invalid parking space, without blocking a ramp or an invalid exit, each of you will do a lot.

- An accessible environment is not only ramps. This, in many ways, is also related to people. How can we break society’s fear of the disabled? Indeed, often people simply do not know how to help, how not to offend them - and therefore ignore the obvious.

- That is why I am now developing the accessibility of the city not only in sports, but also in culture, and I am starting to “take out” children more and more actively to events, to help with preferential attendance at concerts. Society should get used to seeing wheelchair users. Unfortunately, this is part of our modern life, the era of fast cars and motorcycles.

If in case of a fracture of the arm the norm is gypsum, then in case of a fracture of the spine, the only way to travel is a wheelchair. And it’s not scary. It's like glasses on the nose of a blind person.

If we talk about the emotional level, you just need to help the disabled person get out of the house and get used to his society, stop noticing, no matter how strange it sounds. When everyone accepts disability as a part of life, when even in thoughts of a healthy person he won’t get into a disabled parking space, then life in the whole society will noticeably improve. If every businessman is aware of this part of his life, then a priori his restaurant, shop, salon will not be inaccessible.

Not singling out these people, and communicating as equals, you will do much more for self-awareness, self-esteem of people with disabilities and a return to a normal healthy life after an injury. Yes, he is now in a wheelchair, so what? He is also a man, director, breadwinner of the family. And the word "invalid" even does not apply to him. Disabled - yes, but not disabled.

But you know, it makes me happy that recently many people passing by inadvertently offer their help in overcoming an impregnable border, and then they smile kindly and move on. This is a normal healthy relationship. Let's go to them and go.

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By the end of the conversation, you completely forget that Natalya cannot move on her own, and thoughts about her disability are supplanted by thoughts about her own life. About the value of every moment, about willpower and the desire to do something, not only for oneself, but also for others. And also about the underestimation of human capabilities, which so often relatively healthy people sin. Look at Natalia and stop whining. Do you know what her signature is in the mail? “Even sitting in a wheelchair can turn the world around.”