Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@skate_anima
These are the touching moments a seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy fulfills his dream of riding on a skateboard.
The videos were recorded at a skatepark in the city of Porto Alegre, in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul as seven-year-old Joao Vicente took to the ramps.
The youngster suffered a stroke when was just one year and eight months old and since then he has been suffering from cerebral palsy.
Laura Costa Patron, 31, his mother, told local media “my son is a kid full of kindness, wishes and dreams and one of them, for a long time, has been to go skateboarding. For kids with cerebral palsy or any kind of disability, having dreams and wishes is not allowed. The world is always saying no”.
Video Credit: CEN/@avanteleaozinho
The youngster’s dreams have now come true thanks to the project Skate Anima, led by Daniel Paniagua, 35, and Stevan Pinto, 39, therapist and physiotherapist respectively.
In the video, Patron can be seen pushing her son in a metal frame on the skateboard, telling him beforehand: “Hold onto both sides, are you ready?”
She then runs and pushes him up and over a ramp as he beams with joy. The mother then pushes him up another pair of ramps as the person recording says “my God”.
The mother hailed the project, saying: “It is a project created by two amazing people: Daniel and Stevan who did not stop when faced with the dream of another youngster with cerebral palsy. She wanted the same thing as Joao: too skate. Those guys love skating thought it was more than fair that all children have the chance to love skating too.”
The modified skateboard used by Joao was created by professional skater Ricardo Porva from the Brazilian state of Minas Gerias, according to project leader Paniagua who added: “He (Ricardo) made this walker for his daughter who also has a disability and we managed to bring it to the project. We attend all kinds of disabilities; autism, Down’s Syndrome, cerebral palsy, we are open to all kinds of people.”
Skate Anima is a project that was set up in 2015 after a patient asked Pinto if they could skateboard in a physiotherapy session and the therapist decided to adapt it to her. It was decided then that it could be offered to other people too.
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