Maksym Barbanov is a skilled repairer of assistive devices. He takes on a wheelchair of any type — to improve how it works, to fix a fault, to adapt it to a person’s needs and to the way they move.
Since 2017 he has been working at the «Dzherelo» educational and rehabilitation centre for children and young people with disabilities. He has lived in Lviv since 2015, and it was there that he met his future wife. Today they are raising a small daughter, who recently turned a year and a half. Family matters a great deal to him, and he tries to give it as much time as he can. As he works on weekdays, he plans his weekends to be with his wife and child. «Saturday and Sunday I am at home. At the weekend we rest together, we go out,» Maksym says.
Maksym has used a wheelchair since 2009: after a railway accident he underwent the amputation of two limbs. His life after the injury became a different one — but also quite active, effective and full. Maksym does sport, works a lot and supports others in good causes. To be independent and more mobile, he spent four years earning the money for his own car, which he adapted to hand controls himself. He used to install hand controls to order, but today other work leaves him no time for it.
He got to know the Group for Active Rehabilitation long ago. «It started with a recreational camp at the Paralympic base in Yevpatoria — that was where GAR ran its active rehabilitation camps at the time. I applied then,» Maksym says. «As I do not have a spinal cord injury, they would not take me. But then someone dropped out and they made an exception for me — I was invited to the camp in 2011. Since then I have taken part in various GAR events as the mechanic who sets up wheelchairs. I played wheelchair basketball, and we often crossed paths in Yevpatoria.» At one of the camps Maksym trained as a wheelchair skills instructor. Since 2018 he has volunteered at the Lviv hospital, repairing and adapting wheelchairs for veterans of the Russian-Ukrainian war. That was when he was invited to work with the instructors of one of GAR’s programmes — First Contact.
Today Maksym continues to adapt wheelchairs at his clients’ request: he selects, repairs and adjusts assistive devices to the needs of a particular person. He describes his work like this: «First I come, take the soldier’s measurements, work out which wheelchair will suit, pass the information to the volunteers and they buy what is needed. Then I take care of the technical side: replace various parts and so on. Then I bring it and adjust it on the spot for that particular client.»
Working alongside the First Contact instructors, Maksym notes how important this cooperation is for the people they work with: «I think this work makes sense, because a person needs a lot of information in the first period after being wounded or injured. How to transfer, how to take care of yourself, how to take part in society? The First Contact instructors will tell you, show you, teach you and motivate you. And that is great! When I was injured there was nothing like it — nobody even talked about such things or explained them. I got all my information from the internet.»
Maksym has big plans for the future and works hard to make them real. He wants to buy a new wheelchair — a light, comfortable, manoeuvrable Panthera. He also wants a house of his own. Of his present home Maksym says: «There are ten steps up to my entrance, and beyond that everything is accessible. But in the flat I cannot get into the bathroom in the wheelchair — I transfer onto a chair. That habit has been built over the years.» And although the Barbanov family currently lives in a home that is not adapted, we believe Maksym’s dream of his own comfortable house, convenient for everyone in the family, will come true as soon as possible.
A wheelchair well chosen for a particular person and properly adjusted means a completely different level of independence and mobility. That comfort and freedom of movement is what Maksym Barbanov creates. We admire the quality of his craft and are glad to work with him.
