Campaign for an electronic knee and foot

This is my story in a nutshell, to introduce you to your Finance colleague on a personal level outside of work.

I was born in Sarajevo (Bosnia), today the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Unfortunately, my completely normal childhood was disrupted by the war that broke out in 1992 when I was nine years old.

After two years of living in a war situation, with all the horrors that a war can offer, on a seemingly unusual day without bombing in Sarajevo, I was wounded along with my brother and a group of friends in January '94.

It was a particularly quiet day, no grenades had fallen in my neighbourhood for days and the first snow of the year had fallen. All the children from my and other neighbourhoods came out to play in the newly fallen snow. There were 30 to 40 of us children playing snowballs and sliding on sledges. It was lunchtime and many (fortunately for them) listened to their mothers to go to lunch. The few of us still left for one last run were less fortunate. There were five of us left in my group and there were more in the other group.

They started shelling the neighbourhood with mortar shells and in running home we were all hit, some wounded like me others unfortunately dead. In this hell, fortunately or unfortunately, I was conscious the whole time and I saw my friends dying in front of me, I saw my wounded leg and my brother on the ground screaming.

In this massacre on 22 January 1994, six girls and boys were killed and many others injured.

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After two days, I was taken by the UN together with my brother and my mother to Bologna to try to save both our lives. They succeeded and I suffered an amputation of my leg above the knee.

They amputated my leg on 4 February 1994, and after 3 months in hospital I was released to continue my treatment, go back to school and learn a new language for me, Italian. For 3 months I tried various prostheses to learn to walk again, but unfortunately the first operation had not gone completely well and I went back to hospital for another operation which went perfectly. In September, I went back again to try prostheses and learn to walk again. The prostheses were changed often because I was developing and growing and my legs had to be changed accordingly. The Rizzoli Centre in Bologna had taught me how to walk and supported me in my new life with the promise of an electronic leg once I stopped growing. Unfortunately, this promise was not kept by them and the electronic leg I only had on trial for two weeks was never built for me.

At the age of 14 I started to have the first back problems and was advised to start swimming to help me get better. I like sport in general, I have always been a child who played sports, even in the war I did Greco-Roman wrestling. Swimming took me, I liked it and I practised it for 10 years at a competitive level, winning Italian championships and holding records in my disciplines. I started doing European championships, then I qualified for the world championships held in Argentina. But unfortunately due to economic problems I couldn't go. But a few years later I managed to qualify and participate in the Paralympics in Athens in 2004 with the Bosnian national team.

After the swimming experience I threw myself into a group sport and so I started wheelchair basketball in 2007, which I still play today in the national B league. I have also had many experiences playing in other teams. I did three years in Parma in the Italian A2 series, then I went back to Bologna in the B series, then back to Parma for two years to try to get into the A series, but I didn't succeed. And finally a small experience in Serie A in Florence in 2021 that led me to be called to the Bosnian national team of which I have been a part for 6 months. Now I'm playing in Serie B at Bologna looking for promotion to Serie A. I have just last week been summoned to play for the European championship for the Bosnian national team.

I have started this campaign to try and raise money for an electronic leg and foot, which are the top of the range and are the closest thing to a completely normal life that an amputee like me can wish for, helping with everyday life as well as mobility, walking and experiencing the thrill of running that other commonly used prostheses do not allow me.

I have been told that while running you feel exhaustion, and at the same time, like the strongest you have ever felt. You feel free. I would like to experience that.

Thank you.

Admir