Kolya

Kolya has no legs and only one arm, and had been wheelchair-bound throughout his early childhood when Project Orphan Outreach sponsored his first trip to the US. He received his prosthetics at the age of eight, and quickly learned to walk on them with remarkable prowess. In fact, most people who meet Kolya do not realize that he has prosthetics at all. A few years after his first trip, Big Dreams Children's Foundation began a partnership with Project Orphan Outreach. We have since sponsored several trips for Kolya, for routine prosthetic repairs and readjustments—as well as the occasional hockey game. Kolya has also become a top student in his class, and his English has improved—partly as a result of his frequent trips to the US. Here at Big Dreams Children's Foundation, we are thrilled to help kids like Kolya move past disability, to realize their best abilities. Early in his life, Kolya had been unable to go on wheelchairs or venture out beyond the walls of the orphanage, but now he is able to explore his world with ease. In fact, in 2016, he joined a Russian disability advocacy group and successfully climbed Mount Everest on his prosthetic legs.