A teenager forced to fall years behind in school because of cerebral palsy was given a dream gift at the beginning of October that has changed his life.
Eighteen-year-old Nurgazy lives in the remote village of Ak Uchuk, Kyrgyzstan, and isn’t able to walk himself to school. His limitations have also kept him in the ninth grade.
Suffering from cerebral palsy, a “disorder of movement, muscle tone or posture” according to the Mayo Clinic, the oldest of three children gets pushed nearly 40 minutes every day in a wheelchair by his brother, Dastan, across a rocky landscape.
“I pity my Mom,” he told a production crew from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “She has to spend all her time pushing my wheelchair.”
All three children lost their father in a car accident in March.
“I want to be like my friends, my classmates, and go to school as freely as they do,” he added while reflecting on a four-wheel ATV he had been dreaming about.
Nurgazy couldn’t have been more happy than he was at the end of the interview. A wide-mouthed grin possessed his face as a trunk door opened up to reveal an ATV donated by an anonymous 23-year-old via the charity Elim Barsynby.
The only concern left for Nurgazy’s school treks — will his younger brother be able to keep up with him? Sibling rivalry demands Dastan horde the gasoline canister.
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