“How many wheelchair users have you seen on the street in the last week? How many in the last year?”

Depending on how big your city is and how often you are out and about, your answers likely vary widely. But if you live in the United States, chances are good that you’ve seen at least one — and probably many more — wheelchair users going about their daily lives in your area.

When Alexandra Kutas asked her university professors those same questions about their experience in Dnipropetrovsk in her native Ukraine, she was met with silence. In the country’s third-largest city, with almost 1 million residents, none of her professors could think of another wheelchair user they had seen.

Sadly, her experience is shared by millions of wheelchair users around the world. While progressive laws and attitudes slowly improve access and quality of life for wheelers in the United States and other countries like the United Kingdom and Australia, progress toward equality rolls more slowly in many other countries, sometimes not at all.

For Denisse Chavarria, the lack of accessibility in Costa Rica has literally slowed her roll, as the absence of accessible sidewalks forces her to regularly navigate a two-hour gauntlet of pothole-strewn roads and unfriendly drivers in her wheelchair so she can attend therapy. For Ivan Sosa, Croatia’s physical obstacles pale in comparison to the outdated attitudes on disability that he confronts every day in his quest to become a doctor.

In their countries they may be the visible few, but by sharing their stories, they hope to give voice to the marginalized and help bring about the changes needed to empower other wheelers.

Alexandra Kutas

Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine

Alexandra Kutas knew that wheelchair users in Ukraine faced an uphill roll long before her professors’ silence in response to her simple question about how many wheelchair users they had seen on the streets of Dnipropetrovsk. A doctor’s mistake left her paralyzed since birth and reliant on her wheelchair. She thinks Ukraine has the potential to embrace disability and accessibility, but lacks the resources and impetus for change.

“Unfortunately on the streets of Ukraine you can rarely see people in wheelchairs,” she says. “The problem is mostly inaccessible infrastructure. … If I need assistance, I can easily find people who gladly help me. But it’s annoying because even though people react nicely, if I wanted to go for a walk, I would have to ask for help for every single sidewalk, so I usually don’t walk alone.”

Growing up, Kutas relied on her parents and friends and the opportunities they provided. “I’m really blessed for my parents helping me,” she says. “The country is still not accessible at all. To get around I need my own personal driver because transportation is not accessible and the city center doesn’t have curb cuts.” When she attended university, she relied on friends to carry her up four flights of stairs to her classes. The building had no elevators and she was the only wheelchair user asking for improvements.

Kutas had little to compare the lack of access against, but as she traveled abroad with her family, and later alone, her eyes opened. “When I started to travel around Europe, I began to realize places can be accessible,” she says. “I fell in love with all the accessible trains and buses that allowed me to get around cities independently. Obviously, accessibility in Europe differs from country to country, but it’s better than Ukraine most of the time.”

With that realization, Kutas found herself facing a stark choice. “My first thought was maybe I should move, because it’s really, really difficult to live in Ukraine since not much is accessible, but after the revolution I started to believe that it is possible for my country to change, so I decided to do my best to bring that about,” she says. “It’s my homeland.”

The revolution she speaks of, the Orange Revolution of 2004, led to a revote for the presidential election and was seen as evidence that democracy could exist in a former Soviet country. Kutas’ plan for a revolution of accessibility began to take shape as she wrapped up her undergraduate studies at Dnipropetrovsk National University. She jumped on an assigned final group project as an opportunity to devise a plan to improve access in the city center. Knee deep in the heavy winter snows, her team mapped out the locations where ramps and curb cuts were needed and then submitted a proposal for funding and applied for various European Union grants. She won best project, which helped propel her to a degree in psychology, but the project didn’t have the impact she had hoped. No one would fund the suggested improvements.

“Unfortunately we are having a war and all of our politicians, if they don’t have the money, say everything goes for the war,” she says. She had hoped the mayor would adopt her project as part of his election campaign, “but they said it was too expensive.”

The war with Russia, which started two years ago, has drained resources and left many soldiers and civilians with new disabilities. Kutas is optimistic that disability and accessibility will soon find their time in the spotlight.

“Hopefully, after everything ends, politicians will do something, but right now the war is still going on, slowly,” she says. “It looks like the media and some groups are trying to change things, but the whole country is so inaccessible that it’s going to take time and lots of investments.”

Fashion Modeling for Access

Still, Kutas isn’t willing to just sit around and wait for accessibility to come. When she failed to secure any funding for her project, she decided to do things differently.

“I have wanted to be a fashion model since I was 16 and I’ve had a lot of photo shoots, so I decided to try to become a famous fashion model and get attention for people with disabilities in the Ukraine that way,” she says. “I figure it would be easier to earn money to make the country more accessible with the help of the media.”

That may sound like a fantasy, but with her natural good looks and tenacity she has made it a reality. She started out as a hostess for Ukraine’s national fashion week. On the first day she met Andrey Sarymsakov, a photographer who expressed interest in working with her. One successful session later, the two felt confident they had the makings of a good exhibition. The exhibit, entitled “Break Your Chains,” was picked up by a museum in Kiev and shown during fashion week. “It was a big deal because no one had ever had an exhibition of a fashion model who uses a wheelchair in Ukraine,” she says. The show led to an article in the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail and an influx of local and national attention. “It was great because I could talk about my project and the importance of making cities more accessible.”

Kutas recently visited the United States, where she spent much of her time developing connections and learning how she can help improve access in Ukraine. During her stay she contacted the U.S. embassy about bringing her show stateside and was a guest on John Hockenberry’s Public Radio International show, The Takeaway. She is committed to bringing about change and has learned that being first isn’t always a bad thing. “It has been interesting and fun and really difficult at the same time,” she says.Denisse Chavarria

San Jose, Costa Rica

The absence of wheelchair users on the streets of San Jose, Costa Rica, is more than just a talking point for Denisse Chavarria. Until January, she was a prime example of the country’s often hidden wheelchair-using population, as she lacked a wheelchair she could use independently. Two and a half years ago a surgery to fix Chavarria’s aneurysms left her a C3-7 quad. She has spent the majority of her time since then in the three accessible rooms of her parents’ house, relying on others to push her around in a medical transport chair.

“When I got out of the hospital, the doctors told my mom I would be able to move out after a couple of months. Those were the two longest months in my life. I’m still waiting,” she says. “When you get out of the hospital they transfer you to a rehab center for one month. If you start doing something new, they give you more therapy, but if you stay the same, they tell you that they’re not going to give you more therapy because you are not going to improve anyway.”

Chavarria says that attitude is emblematic of the Costa Rican medical community’s regressive approach to spinal cord injury. “I tried to tell them that the rehab and therapy is not necessarily for me to move or walk again, but for me to stay in shape and learn and be able to live my life to the fullest,” she says. “They treat me like garbage here.”

Prior to her injury, Chavarria taught kids with disabilities and yearns to get back to work, though she is unsure if she can logistically. “Right now I can’t even write, so how am I going to teach them?” she asks. She has seen many of her friends with disabilities get repeatedly rejected from jobs and says discrimination is rampant.

“It’s like people with disabilities are seen as not worthy and unable to do anything,” she says. “People see me in my wheelchair and they go up to my mom and ask, ‘Can she speak?’”

She laughs off the question. “Oh my god, I speak a lot!”

To keep her mind active, Chavarria works part time for the local university, but doesn’t even make enough to pay her phone bill. Money is a real issue.

Chavarria receives a disability pension through Costa Rica’s Social Insurance program, but says, “Social Insurance will not help me with a wheelchair, it won’t help me with my catheters, it won’t do anything. My parents have to pay for everything. That’s pretty hard because we’re not rich, and even if I was rich, there’s no way to buy all the things I need.”

With very little government support, Chavarria faces a chicken-and-egg situation; she wants to work to earn money to pay for her own needs and supplies but lacks the supplies and resources to get and hold down a job. “I just want to teach, but I need money,” she says.

This January, Chavarria’s goal grew closer when a friend’s crowdfunding efforts netted her a new Permobil F5, her dream chair and her first chair she can use independently. She traveled to Florida to pick it up and marveled at the differences in her surroundings.

“I saw that everything was accessible,” she says. “It was awesome … and then I got back here to Costa Rica and it was disappointing getting back to reality.”

Chavarria’s first trip to the hospital in her new power chair provided a stark reminder of the distance Costa Rica has to go before wheelchair users can enjoy anything close to a level playing field.

“When I got to the hospital, the doctors and nurses seemed surprised to see me in my big wheelchair. Power wheelchairs are pretty expensive, and without government help, very few people get them,” she explains. “It should be the other way around, where everyone who needs one has a wheelchair, and doctors and nurses are shocked when that doesn’t happen.”Ivan Sosa

Rijeka, Croatia

Ivan Sosa has had plenty of time to think about the obstacles facing people with disabilities in Croatia in the 12 years since he suffered a cerebellum injury that affected his speech and left him using a wheelchair much of the time. When Sosa was injured, he had completed medical school in Rijeka, Croatia, and was about to start his internship. Instead he found himself in rehab at the start of a journey that would expose him to the sometimes-ugly side of a country undergoing rapid change.

“It’s a pretty interesting perspective because we are a developing society, and human rights are something that’s really important, but often overlooked,” he says.

Located on the Adriatic Sea, with a population of about 4.5 million, Croatia has endured a turbulent 25 years since gaining its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. In 2015, Croatia’s unemployment rate of 16.5 percent was the third-worst in the European Union.

Sosa knows his disability only complicates things. “In general, it is hard to get a job for everyone, and for people in wheelchairs it is even harder,” he says. “Employers are not good with the idea of employing people with disabilities as they’re afraid of getting less efficient work from us. If you look at the structure of Croatia’s population, most of the jobs are blue collar. So white collar jobs are exclusive for the general population and even more exclusive for people with disabilities.”

Sosa wanted to continue pursuing his medical career after finishing rehab, but like many facilities in Croatia, the hospital lacked an elevator, accessible facilities and staff willing to work around his needs. He eventually got a job as a research fellow at the same facility. His office was up a flight of stairs. “I climbed to the second floor each day for more than a year with the help of my father,” says Sosa. His complaints and requests for a new office went unheeded, something he says happens all too often in Croatia.

“Most people are not malicious,” he explains. But they still see disability as a personal problem, rather than as a social issue. “If you ask politicians for something just for your disability, they don’t see it as a great problem, but if you ask for something because you need it to be ‘normal’ and live like anyone who doesn’t use a wheelchair, that is where problems start.”

“The question that I personally face most often is, ‘How do you think you are going to make it? People most often think your disability prevents you from being able to do some ‘normal’ things.”

Sosa sees social attitudes slowly changing. “A few years ago it was easier for the public to dismiss the opinions of the disabled and do as they liked, thinking we will just have to deal with that,” he says. “That is becoming less and less possible, because we are organizing ourselves more and more efficiently.”

Sosa is a member of an active Facebook group for Croatians with disabilities and says he sees more groups coming together. “A few years back it was something that two or three people did. Now more and more people are sharing their opinions and speaking up,” he says, noting that the Internet has broadened people’s horizons and exposed them to other countries’ approaches and connected them with advocates and leaders abroad.

Still, change at home comes at a slower pace than Sosa would like. He has heard multiple politicians promise improvements in accessibility only to end up failing or apologizing for being unable to deliver. Yet, his own experience shows change is happening.

Twelve years after he was turned away, Sosa is finally doing his internship, and at the same facility he was unable to attend after his injury. The hospital still lacks many of the accessible amenities Sosa would like, but a new facilitator who was willing to work with Sosa’s needs has enabled him to take the next step on his career path. Once he becomes a board certified physician, he will be able to advocate for change from inside the medical profession, and you can bet he won’t be turning away interested candidates.

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