With the help of two wooden sticks – one longer, clenched in his teeth, and the other shorter, fixed between the twisted, non-working fingers of his hand – Maksym works on a computer keyboard. At the same time, to make it easier to press the keys, he is forced to lie on his side. At 25 years of age, Maksym has already been confined to a wheelchair for ten years… A FATAL JUMP Ten years ago, after jumping from a cliff into a river, Maksym began using the phrase "my previous life." It ended at the age of 15. During the jump, he misjudged the depth and hit his head on the sandy bottom. His brother Yura and a friend kept him from drowning. Then for four months his family spent day and night at his bedside in the hospital, but there was no improvement. The doctors' diagnosis: severe cervical spine injury. And that meant paralysis of the entire body. – I couldn't imagine how to live on. It was more than a shock, – Maksym recalls. – At first I lay completely motionless – I just stared at the ceiling. During the first month in the hospital I could barely, just barely, move my left arm. And when later I managed to bend my right arm at the elbow – I was as happy as if I had cleared a two-meter height! I understood that I couldn't lie there all the time staring at the ceiling. I had to do something: since my legs don't work, we began fighting for my arms. When Maksym was discharged from the hospital, his mother, Liudmyla Ivanivna, began tying dumbbells to her son's arms, and he tried to lift them. To keep from crying out, he clenched his teeth. And so for 5–6 hours a day. He used heavier and heavier dumbbells. He was already lifting five-kilogram ones, until he tore his back muscles. Now Maksym can move his hands, but his fingers have remained twisted by paralysis, and he can essentially hold nothing with them… HIS OWN TEACHER – If only there were more people like her… – with such warmth Maksym speaks about the director of the Lutsk City Center of Social Services for Youth, Nina Hrabarovska. Three years ago Nina Ivanivna visited the Mykhaliuks' home and saw Maksym there. After that the young man's life changed radically: a computer appeared in his apartment. So desired and so… unfamiliar. After all, during the 7 years Maksym had spent after the injury, life without computers was already impossible to imagine. Moreover, thanks to a letter of request from city mayor Anton Kryvytskyi, the "Vizor" firm immediately provided Maksym with unlimited free Internet access! – And back then I didn't even know what a computer mouse was for, – the young man smiles. – I'd seen on TV that people move it around on the table, but I had no idea why. They only showed me how to turn the computer on and how to turn it off. After that I was my own teacher, because not even any of my acquaintances knew how to use a computer. You can imagine what it meant for Maksym to be his own teacher, when at first he had to spend a long time learning the most basic things: hitting the keyboard keys, not to mention the mouse. The young man's fingers don't work. So Maksym tried pressing with his palms. It didn't work: his palm covered several keys at once and, accordingly, several letters popped up at once… Even after several dozen attempts! He had to find another way out. And Maksym found it – he learned to type with sticks. His mother brought in a broken branch from outside. Maksym clenched the stick in his teeth – and pressed on the keyboard. It worked! And soon his family figured out how to fix the other stick between the fingers of one of Maksym's hands. After that, as they say, it was just a matter of technique. – Of course, I don't type as fast as people who type with all 10 fingers, but at least faster than my brother, – he smiles. COMPUTER GENIUS When Maksym still didn't have a computer, he buried himself in books and enrolled in the correspondence department of the economics faculty of Volyn State University. And he wrote his first coursework holding a pen in his teeth. 80 pages! In very neat handwriting. He wrote lying on his stomach and propping himself up on his elbows. He could, of course, have asked someone to help. But he wanted to prove, above all to himself, that he could manage on his own. In the same way, on his own initiative and without outside help, he took part in the "Student of the Year — 2003" competition. He made it into the top three finalists in the "Computer Genius" nomination! The "Financier" program created by Maksym is designed for conducting financial analysis and analyzing the results of an enterprise's activity. Specialists are already using this program – the young man has set up a special website on the Internet (www.finprog.narod.ru) where it can be "downloaded." For free, by the way. — Here my knowledge of computers and my economics education have come together successfully, — says Maksym. — By the way, I'm already finishing a second, improved version of this program. The young man's strong-willed character and his knowledge – Maksym's grade book contains only excellent marks – could not go unnoticed. The head of the regional council, Vasyl Dmytruk, allocated him a scholarship. And with the assistance of economics faculty lecturer Oleh Hadzevych, since June 18 of this year fifth-year VSU student Maksym Mykhaliuk has been working at VAT "Volynholding" — thanks to that same Internet and his own "Financier" program, he works at home on reports. — For the first three years after the injury I was, as they say, "out of it." Back then I couldn't even dream that I would both study and work, and at such a solid enterprise, — Maksym does not hide his satisfaction. But for his right to work, Maksym had to fight not only his own illness, but also our bureaucratic system. The certificate issued to the young man by the medical-expert commission contained the killer word "Incapacitated." He had to prove that he was capable of working! And the doctors rewrote the document: "Physically incapacitated. Mental labor accessible – can work in specially created conditions." CIVIC POSITION In essence, "specially created conditions" means his computer. The machine thanks to which his world became different. Radically different. — It is my deep conviction that providing computers to people with disabilities must be resolved at a serious state level. There must necessarily be a corresponding program: a computer for every person with a disability. Believe me, a computer is not just a toy, it is a whole world, it is access to the world, it is work. For people like me, this is needed even more than the cars that are given to people with disabilities, — Maksym speaks about this problem with pain in his voice. – We have thousands of firms, they change their computers from time to time. So why not leave the old machines to people with disabilities? – …How do you think, would people raise a hand against me – a person in a wheelchair? – Maksym suddenly asks after a pause. The conversation unexpectedly turns to the elections. Everyone is talking about them now, everywhere. And our interlocutor, it turns out, is not simply interested in politics. Recently Maksym, together with people with disabilities like himself, whom he calls "cervicals," announced an All-Ukrainian action via the Internet: in the event of election falsification, they are ready to go out into the street in their wheelchairs... Oleksandr ZGHORANETS. Vasyl ULITSKYI.