Imagine that for some reason, often due to an unfortunate accident, you become disabled. Your life comes to a halt for a moment. The first days are filled with shock, perhaps disbelief or despair. After a while, you reflect and realize that life must go on. You have to rebuild your life. You need to learn how to function using a wheelchair, prosthetics, or by learning Braille. This is where we come in – the Accessible World Foundation, to help organize your life anew.

Since the beginning of our activity in 2019, we have been supporting people who become disabled for various reasons, as well as their loved ones. The decision to undertake such activities was driven by the personal experience of one of our foundation’s co-founders facing disability. Experiencing it firsthand, they understood how difficult the first stage of a new life and adapting to a disability is. People facing their own disability or that of someone close to them must learn to live again. It turns out that tasks that were previously effortless now become real challenges. As you can imagine, the journey to recovery, both mental and physical, is a very long, difficult, and complex process.

That’s why we created the “New Life” program within our foundation. Its main goal is to generally improve psychophysical efficiency and develop life skills for those entering the world of living with a disability. For our beneficiaries (people with disabilities and their relatives), we provide psychological support, especially in the initial period of living with a disability, physiotherapy, and rehabilitation support, which is crucial particularly for people with physical disabilities, as well as organizational and legal support. Only such broad and comprehensive support, encompassing several aspects of life, can help a person experiencing disability return to social and professional activity in the shortest possible time.

In November 2022, with support and cooperation from the US-based organization “Project Hope,” we established the SANUS Medical Center in Krakow, where, as part of a joint project, we helped disabled people from Ukraine who came to Krakow. Our assistance focused mainly on improving and restoring health for our beneficiaries. Our activities included, among others: medical and physiotherapy consultations, physiotherapy treatments, rehabilitation, psychological support, and teaching Polish to foreigners. From November 2022 to November 2023, over 1850 beneficiaries, primarily women with small children, people with disabilities, seniors, and war veterans injured in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, benefited from our help. All rehabilitation and physiotherapy assistance was made possible through the use of high-quality physiotherapy equipment and auxiliary rehabilitation equipment purchased with funds provided by “Project Hope.” A fantastic group of people, doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists, translators, auxiliary staff, and volunteers enthusiastically engaged in the mission of helping those in need. Our beneficiaries received help entirely free of charge. This was made possible due to funding sourced from a grant within the joint project.

Our SANUS Medical Center continues to operate to this day. After the project ended in November 2023, we continued our physiotherapy and rehabilitation activities, providing care for people with disabilities, seniors, the poor, and those at risk of social exclusion who require rehabilitation and physiotherapy. However, to raise funds for the operation of our Center and to continue helping those in need, we provide some services for a fee, such as massages and physiotherapy treatments. Unfortunately, the funds raised this way primarily cover the ongoing costs (rent, utilities, salaries, etc.) of maintaining the Center, and from the remaining small part, we try to continue our free assistance for our beneficiaries. Despite this, we do not give up and continue our efforts in various ways. Life can be surprising, both positively and negatively. Who knows, maybe in the future one of us might face disability and need help for a new start, but just as we were surprised by the help from the American organization, we believe that our help might positively surprise someone in the future. Therefore, we ask for help and greatly appreciate any support, both material and immaterial.