Surf, climbing and martial arts with Erasmus+ and Fundación Tambien

Me and my Batec

Hello, my name is Mateo. I’m 13 years old and I live in a small town outside Madrid, called Brunete.

I live with my mum, my dad and my sister, whose name is Isabel (she’s 9) and my dog Bonnie.

I use crutches to get about because I have cerebral palsy from an infection I had when I was born. That means some messages don’t get from my brain down to my legs, and it affects my balance. Crutches are fine for shorter distances, but I need something to help me for bigger distances. When I was smaller I used a bike with a motor which was great for going around the countryside, but I was dependent on adults to help me get on and off the bike, and you can’t take the bike on public transport. 

I investigated different types of bikes and wheelchairs to see if I could find something that suited my needs. This was my list of what’s important:

• Be more autonomous in my daily life
• Get to school and back by myself (not always in the car!)
• Be able to carry school bags, crutches, basketball and things with me
• Be allowed on public transport (to go into the city)
• Be able to go on dirt tracks
• Keep up with everyone else

What I really wanted was to be able to go to school by myself, or with my sister and my friends on bikes. My school is just over a kilometre from my house, so it’s too far to walk. 

I found a wheelchair attachment called a Batec Mobility (http://batec-mobility.com/en/). It has an electric motor and turns a normal wheelchair into a rocket! It’s made in Spain by a company that has lots of employees who use wheelchairs, so they really know what they’re doing. Because it attaches to a wheelchair, it means that I will never be too big for it, because as I grow I only need to change my chair, not the whole thing.

Thanks to some very generous funding I was able to buy a Batec, and this blog is going to be about what I do and where I go with this amazing machine. I hope you like it and come with me on this great adventure!