“One day my life changed dramatically,” says the head of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind in Lviv Oblast Oksana Potymko. At the age of 24, she worked as a nurse and wanted above all to become a good surgeon. Then, suddenly, she lost her eyesight… and lost any hope to recover. During the first year of depressive shock Potymko only learned to cook borshch and knit. However, one ordinary phrase took her out of her despair. “Blind people study at universities and write theses, you should try, too,” her father told her.
“Those words added to my desire to become a socially active person again and radically changed my lifestyle. First I graduated from university, then I did a postgraduate course and started working,” says Potymko. As a blind student wanting to study history she was marginalized but kept working, proving that her physical disability hadn’t limited her inner potential. She was first in her exams and graduated with honors. Even her teachers apologized to her for their unjust attitude at the beginning.
Now Potymko has a Ph.D. in history. She has never opted for the easy way, which is why she chose a topic for her thesis that forced her to delve into archives and ancient documents: “The Historiography of Medical Development in Lviv from the 4th to the 18th century.”
Five years ago Oksana Potymko headed the Lviv oblast’s Society of the Blind. They did their best in order to integrate blind people into society. They also started fighting for their dignity and self-assertion. “Most disabled people believe that society ‘has to give them what they want,’ says Potymko. “However, such people don’t understand how many efforts they have to make to get it. This is a consequence of a wrong but deep-rooted approach of the Soviet system regarding disabled people: it used to satisfy their most basic needs and hush up the real number of disabled people.”
During those five years she made progress in her important mission. With the support of sponsors like “Lviv-Leopolis” Rotary Club, the head of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind runs a computer class for blind people and a digital library. At present they have over a hundred audio books at their disposal. The class also includes English and Polish lessons. Now Potymko is trying to open courses for blind people training to become masseuses using the computer class.
Potymko’s presence among politicians and officials forces them to start considering the problems of blind people. Her cooperation with Arsenii Yatseniuk resulted in a valuable acquisition of two new buses for the Society of the Blind.
The society’s Simferopol office received one of the buses to take blind people to the sea. The other went to the Lviv office, for excursions all over Ukraine. “I used to be very shy at school, and even when I knew the correct answer to a teacher’s question I didn’t dare raise my hand. Now I have changed a lot due to all of life’s challenges,” says Potymko. She boldly knocks at the doors of foreign embassies and finds support there as well. One of the projects that is now being held is a home-school. After a two-week training course in Sweden, the managers of the central office of the Ukrainian Society of the Blind started increasing the number of social services for blind people in Ukraine. They plan to publish legal documents, an English-Ukrainian dictionary, instructions for 100 medications, etc, using Braille script and in audio version. With the support of the Canadian embassy in Ukraine Potymko is publishing the first “ABC” for the blind.
Potymko then started working with another part of society — one which should integrate the blind. The series of concerts “The Life Has Opened” became an idea of global significance. “Our concerts are unique not only in Ukraine, but also in Europe and maybe even in the world, as we have an orchestra with 15 blind singers!” claims Bohdan Mochurad, who conducts the orchestra within the Maria Zankovetska National Academic Drama Theater. “Such concerts don’t pretend to demonstrate any vocal achievements. People feel that when the blind come in front of the orchestra and sing, they get their chance at life and accomplish a personal feat. Not every healthy singer can sing with an orchestra. This is a certain privilege for us.”
Supported by the Lviv Regional Department of Education, Potymko started implementing methods of inclusive education for blind children in Ukrainian secondary schools. This year the first blind girl in the Lviv region will go to a secondary school in her native village. With this aim the primary school teacher underwent a special training course and the whole school is preparing to welcome Anhelina. However, first of all, Potymko is encouraging blind people to be able to protect themselves. Her activity is based on respect rather than sympathy.
“I believe that the Ukrainian Society of the Blind has to be attractive for all its members, who completely or partially lost their eyesight, and to meet their diverse demands,” says Potymko. “Young people can study; elderly people who need only socialization have circles, courses, excursions, theaters and other facilities at their disposal. If someone needs help to be operated on, we are able to help even with this.”
Potymko is supported by the heads of the society’s regional chapters, who follow her example. The Head of the Mukacheve Ukrainian Society of the Blind Vasyl Kondrych thinks that Oksana could be a deputy on account of her unprecedented accomplishments.
Her merits were finally recognized in Ukraine and abroad. In October 2010, she received an award from Paul Garris and the Lviv-Leopolis Rotary Club. Potymko is the second non-rotary person in Ukraine to receive this award. “We did a lot of projects with the Lviv Ukrainian Society of the Blind,” remarks Lviv-Leopolis president Taras Baran. “I remember helping to organize chess tournaments, firstly among the blind and then among the blind and the deaf. I was impressed when I saw blind people telling another person about their actions, [deaf people] used sign language to transmit this information to a seeing person who had to write it down for the blind using Braille script. I was amazed by the persistence and commitment of those people.”
“This is my first award and I take it as a deep recognition of my work, which I do for others,” confesses Potymko. “I’m really touched that so many famous Ukrainian people, sharing the Rotary Club’s ideals, recognized my modest contribution.”
Potymko will now be the new counselor of the Lviv oblast Governor Mykhailo Tsymbaliuk. She plans to start by informing the Lviv Oblast State Administration board about the education and the job placement possibilities for the blind in Lviv oblast, and to suggest ways to improve them.
Since Potymko lost her eyesight, she didn’t throw away the word “to see” from her vocabulary. “In fact, I see a lot of things and they are so real in my imagination that I wake up in the middle of the night and think: did a miracle happen? Sometimes during a meeting I imagine my dream, healthy life. For example, I often see myself skiing on mountain slopes, driving a car, or even more often at the operating table. All the pictures that I see with my inner eye are related to this ‘free’ life, where I don’t depend on other people’s help.” If you ask her to close her eyes and tell you the first thing she sees, Oksana will answer: “I see my family.”
