Titan Lake inside the Alexandru Ioan Cuza (IOR) Park has been made accessible to people with disabilities as part of a program of the Association Caiac Smile, the non-profit announced.

It is the city’s first lake turned accessible to people with disabilities.

As part of the program “Towards normality in adapted kayaks,” the NGO sets up adapted pontoons and kayaks allowing the access of people with disabilities to lakes.

Through the program, which started in Cluj-Napoca earlier this summer, the association plans to make at least ten urban lakes accessible to people with disabilities, particularly motor ones, and act against discrimination.

An event scheduled for September 30 will mark the change that allows people with disabilities access to the lake. Olympians, top athletes and public personalities will row in adapted kayaks. Hundreds of people with special needs and children living in foster centers are expected at the event.

“Seeing the more than one thousand people who went kayaking on Gheroghieni Lake in Cluj, many of them after a long period of being inside – because it is beyond their means to go out in wheelchairs – the joy and smile on children’s faces, but also the support and openness of the authorities show us we are heading in the right direction,” Ionuţ Stancovici, the president of the Caiac Smile Association and the organizer of the event, said.

Stancovici is also the coach of Romania’s Junior and U23 teams in canoe slalom.

(Photo courtesy of Caiac Smile)

simona@romania-insider.com