Life without barriers: how Belgorod residents help create a comfortable environment for people with disabilities

Personal histories

After the severe wound that Vyacheslav received in Afghanistan, he made great efforts to get back on his feet. In this he was helped by a long-standing love of sports - in his youth, a man practiced judo. The physical rehabilitator himself went from a wheelchair to restoring the functions of the musculoskeletal system.

Leah's mother is a person with disabilities. When Leah was ten years old, a fire broke out in the house they lived in. The smoke from the first floors rose to the third, and there was nothing to breathe. Everyone went to the yard and only my mother stayed home. She could hardly move, and her little daughter could not help her.

Then everything ended safely, but the feeling of helplessness, when you can not help the closest person, remained with her for life. For more than 20 years, the doctor has been trying to do everything possible to prevent such tragedies.

Disability is not a sentence

The Tikhonenko family opened a resource support center for people with disabilities. His wife called him “Life Without Barriers.” Today, the institution represents regional organizations of the All-Russian Society of the Disabled (VOI), the All-Russian Society of the Blind (VOS) and the All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) on ensuring a barrier-free environment in the Belgorod region. For almost ten years, the couple has been working to make the environment more accessible to people with disabilities.

In 2020, their project “Healthy foot – active longevity” received support from the Presidential Grants Fund. Tikhonenko studied the distribution of load on the feet in older residents of the Belgorod region. All participants were found to have violations of one degree or another.

Leah has developed a technique that helps people move more and walk more confidently without pain. She also held individual consultations.

Recently, they completed the project “Step the whole family to health”, intended for families of special operations veterans with disabilities living in the Belgorod region. The program for the prevention of children's flatfoot became the winner of the competition of regional subsidies.

More details - in the material "BelPress".

We will remind, the Belgorod takes care of pensioners in the border, despite the danger of attacks APU.