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Several blind people paddled, for the first time in Romania, on Lake Gheorgheni in central-western Cluj-Napoca, being guided by the sounds emitted by speakers on the side, as part of an action organized by the SMile Kayak Association and Cluj City Hall.
"The first accessible kayak route in Romania was inaugurated on Monday, September 26, on Lake Gheorgheni in Cluj-Napoca. Blind people paddled independently from kayaks, guided by the sounds emitted by the speakers on the side. The activity was part of the 'Kayak, an innovative sports culture for youth' SMile 2 Sport and is included in the sports events organized in Cluj-Napoca during the European Sports Week by the City Hall of Cluj-Napoca. The Caiac SMile Association thus joins the initiative of the local authorities to make sports accessible for people with disabilities," says a press release sent on Tuesday by the organizers.
"Since last year, since we started this project, we have been looking for solutions to make the lake accessible for people with disabilities, because it is the sport that I love very much and I know that it is first therapy, and then sport. And I know how much more it means for them to have an accessible sport, but especially a sport on water. The blind are fascinated by floating on the lake. I have met many blind people here in Cluj and we are going to do something new for them, something that I have not ever met anywhere in Romania, nor in other countries where I have wondered: let's make the lake accessible, but in such a way that they can manage on their own, without any help, other than to get into the kayak. For the rest, the speakers do their job: sounds from different points of the lake guide them in which direction to row. It's a project that we wanted to make so easy that it could be implemented in any city in Romania where there is a lake and visually impaired people," declared the chairman of the SMile Kayak Association, Ionut Stancovici.
Among the participants was the mayor Emil Boc, as well as a blind mountaineer, Alex Benchea, nicknamed "the white-eyed mountaineer".AGERPRES
