“The need is very great, because when a patient uses a wheelchair, they don’t have the opportunity to get even minimal service support anywhere. That’s how the idea arose to create a small комплекс so that a person could independently help themselves,” says Volodymyr Honcharuk, Deputy Director General for Technical Issues at the UNBROKEN Center.

“There are examples like bicycle service stations installed in the city — this is a widespread practice in Europe. This very model inspired us to create a service station for wheelchairs, which today do not exist either in Europe or in Ukraine,” said Andrii Pavliv, Head of the Investment and Projects Office of the Lviv City Council.

The station was designed by students of the Lviv National Academy of Arts in cooperation with UNBROKEN rehabilitation center mentor Pavlo Kozak, and it was manufactured free of charge by the local company Metalworkshop.

“We set the brake, and then, accordingly, we can tighten or adjust something here or there. We have wrenches, hex keys, star keys, and a compressor. The compressor is for tire pressure, and everything else is for other manipulations. Something very simple — a user of an upper- or lower-limb prosthesis might have an adapter loosen under load. Not everyone carries hex keys with them,” explained Pavlo Kozak, mentor at UNBROKEN.

“This is an enormous amount of work — both research and design. It all started with simple cubes and, in fact, deep research into ergonomics and human movement. We sat in wheelchairs and tried to understand how to place all these elements so that a person sitting down could easily reach everything at arm’s length,” said Yana Mishnychenko, a student of the Lviv National Academy of Arts.

The tools for wheelchair repair placed in the station were purchased with the support of the Institute of the City and the Lviv-based company Carlsberg Ukraine.

“For us, this project is not about infrastructure as such, but about humanity. Accessibility becomes real when it grows out of cooperation — between the community, business, students, and the city. We are glad to be part of processes that change people’s daily routes and give more autonomy to those who need it,” says Yaryna Kasprivska, Project Manager at the municipal institution “City Institute”

“You can walk through the corridors of this facility, this hospital, and you will see how great the need is right now. And I am very happy to hear that this will not be the last station to be installed,” said Yurii Huk, Director of the Lviv Brewery (Carlsberg Ukraine).

According to specialists at the UNBROKEN center, this practice should be expanded across Ukraine. In particular, such stations are needed near administrative buildings, in public spaces, as well as, for example, at railway stations, near city councils and administrations, or near banks.