With the support of Authorized Government Official for the Rights of People with Disabilities Tetiana Barantsova, and SUSTENTO organization, Yevhenii and his mother Iryna, a professional archer and four-time Paralympian from Ukraine, have received help to find a temporary home at the Latvian Samaritan Association. That support was provided within the framework of the European Disability Forum (EDF) and CBM joint programme.
Yevhenii is a sixteen-year-old young man who, before the war started, lived with his mother in a small town in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. He had to move after bombings started close to their home. Yevhenii has a disability and his mother (who was abroad at the time) had to coordinate with the Authorized Government Official for the Rights of People with Disabilities for his son to join her in Poland, before going together to Latvia. You can read more about their difficult journey in Iryna’s blog.
Blog by Niiara Chubarova from SUSTENTO
Trigger warning from this section until the end of the blog: this testimonial refers to sport rifle and shooting and is showing an image of a young man holding a sporting rifle.
Sports: a family tradition
A few months after their arrival in Latvia, Yevhenii started to practice shooting sports. Such an opportunity was found in Tukuma through the local community “Līdzvērētā“. Since Yevhenii had a sports rifle from his father and his father was a professional sport shooting champion, he was interested in this sport. The representative of SUSTENTO organized a meeting for Yevhenii and his mother with Margita Kanopka, head of the community “Līdzvūrtuība” and a shooting coach in Tukum, in order to assess Yevhenii`s prospects for practicing this sport.
A champion in the making
The sporting rifle was tested and found to be good, but it was also indicated that Yevhenii should try to get the already purchased shooting aids from home in Ukraine. At the first meeting, Yevhenii had the opportunity to try target shooting. And he turned out to be a talented shooter. He was invited to participate in the Tukuma-wide competition. Yevhenii took 2nd place in the competition and now he continues his training thanks to the Latvian Sports Association.