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Yoocan: Where People with Disabilities from All Over the World Connect

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Back in 2017, Wheel:Life featured a story on Yoocan and Alto. For those of you who missed it, Yoocan is a unique, collaborative online community for people with disabilities to connect, share personal stories, and empower each other. Alto was a membership club providing discounts on products and services for the disability community. The two brands have since merged under the Yoocan umbrella eliminating the Alto membership fees in the process. The result? A completely free platform for both community interaction and shopping all on one website.

Wheel:Life has been following Yoocan on social media, and wow, have we read some incredible stories over the past few years! Yoocan began with one Israeli family’s desire to let others with disabilities around the world know they were not alone, but it has since grown into a community of tens of thousands of people from over 105 countries searching the content and writing in to share their experiences, struggles, accomplishments, tips, and more.

Erez Gaon (the inspiration behind Yoocan) with his brother Asaf Gaon. You can read more about Erez here.

Investing in Assistive Technology

Moshe Gaon, Yoocan CEO & Co-Founder

As the community grew and Yoocan continued to form partnerships with various organizations across the globe, it became apparent that innovative startups in the assistive technology field were struggling to find the necessary funding to accelerate marketing and reach potential partners. So, the Yoocan team decided to do something about that and created the first ever early-stage assistive technologies startup hub. Moshe Gaon, Yoocan CEO & Co-Founder, states, “The Yoocan Technologies Hub is designed to help early-stage companies focusing on developing assistive innovation in spaces like mobility, smart home, smart cities, video, IoT, AI, and more, reach out faster to the market, raise funds, and connect to potential partners.”

Editor’s Note:  If you would like to join the Yoocan Technologies Hub as a startup or investor, send an email to moshe@yoocantech.com.

Expanding to Include More Languages

From its inception, Yoocan had been an English-speaking platform, but Gaon’s vision is to make it available in every language so people can share their stories and search in their native tongue. His hope is to have Yoocan available in three languages by the end of 2019. The second language became available last year when Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, got on board and sponsored the translation of Yoocanfind.com into Hebrew. Yoocan is aiming to find sponsors for the Spanish, German, Chinese, and Arabic versions next.

Editor’s Note:  If your company would like to learn about the Bank Hapoalim case study and explore the option of sponsoring Yoocan in another language, send an email to moshe@yoocantech.com.

Yoocan Work!

Out of all the features Yoocan has unveiled or is planning to introduce in the near future, Wheel:Life is

most excited about Yoocan Work. Job-seekers and employers should keep their eyes open over the next couple of months for a new career board catering specifically to the disability community. A hard launch date is yet to be determined, but Gaon hints that it’s just around the corner. Stay connected with Wheel:Life, and we’ll be sure to bring you more details as they become available.

Editor’s Note:  Employers who’d like to collaborate with Yoocan or sponsor this new feature to create job opportunities for people with disabilities, reach out to Moshe@yoocantech.com.

Yoocan Share Your Story, Too

Gaon encourages people to get involved and declares, “Many of our storytellers have found friends and have helped others by sharing their story. One story can change somebody’s life.”

Yoocan storyteller Jessica Marie says, “I remember years ago when I had no friends with disabilities and I felt so alone and Yoocan makes you feel so welcomed and part of a community.”

Yoocan community members Shane Burcaw and Hannah Elizabeth run a YouTube channel documenting their inter-abled relationship.

Children are also encouraged to get involved in sharing and learning more about what kids with similar disabilities around the world are doing. Yoocan often receives feedback from parents who are grateful to have met new people through the online community, and for this, Gaon says, the team is especially proud.

Editor’s Note:  Sharing your story on Yoocan is simple. Go to Yoocanfind.com, click on “+ADD” at the top of the page and follow the steps to create an account by clicking on “Sign Up For Free.” Once you’re registered, you’ll be taken to a form where you can write out your story and upload some photos. After you submit it, your story will be reviewed before appearing on the website, so make sure to follow along on social media daily!

If you’d like to help and support Yoocan, consider doing some of your product research and shopping via Yoocanfind.com/Shop. Access to the site is free, and for every purchase you make, Yoocan receives a small commission from the vendors they work with to help build new features, such as Yoocan Work, and keep the global community up and running.

Remembering 2018: Lessons from Wheel:Life to Carry into 2019

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As each year comes to a close, we like to look back and reflect on the people we met, the journeys we went on, and the lessons we learned. In 2018, we talked to adventure travelers, authors, filmmakers, techies, physical therapists, fitness gurus, entrepreneurs, and more. We learned so much from each and every person we featured here on Wheel:Life and hope you enjoyed their stories as much as we did. Here are a few of our favorites from 2018 and the lessons we learned from them that we’ll strive to adhere to in 2019.

Sex, Love, and Disability:  Ben Duffy’s New Documentary Exposes It All

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Filmmaker Ben Duffy and actor Ajani “AJ” Murray met while working on a project for Yoocan, an online community for people with disabilities. At the time, the actor living with cerebral palsy struck up a conversation with Duffy about his dating struggles and the lack of information surrounding love and sexuality in the disability community. Murray encouraged Duffy to tackle the subject for his next film, and after some initial research, the filmmaker did just that. Duffy and his crew interviewed several members of the disability community who agreed to expose their personal lives on camera, and on Valentine’s Day 2018, the trailer of Take a look at this heart was released. While the full documentary is not yet available to the general public, it has been screened at a handful of colleges and is now available for pre-order on iTunes.

Lesson to carry into 2019:  Everybody deserves to love and be loved.

Adaptive Aerial Yoga Allows Wheelchair Users to Fly

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When aerial yoga came onto Sara Schaffer’s radar a few years ago, her personal experience with it as a student paired with her career in physical therapy sparked an idea:  adaptive aerial yoga. Working with Harmony Hoefner, creator of Volo aerial yoga, they developed an innovative approach that allows wheelchair users to move their bodies in various ways with the help of a silk hanging from the ceiling. Participants have reported numerous benefits including decompression of the spine, a release of upper body stiffness, ease of breath, and reduction of chronic pain. If you’re near Lakewood, Colorado, Schaffer holds one-on-one adaptive aerial yoga classes at the Chanda Center for Health. Email frontdesk@chandacenter.org to schedule a session!

Lesson to carry into 2019:  Movement does the body good!

Wheel:Life and Comfort Medical Sponsor the Paradox Sports Adaptive Ice Climbing Trip

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A little over a decade ago, a group of guys with a passion for the outdoors realized people with disabilities had few opportunities to rock climb. Having seen the impact the sport had on a friend with a spinal cord injury, they decided to put on an adaptive climbing clinic in 2007 in an effort to share their knowledge with a larger audience. Over a decade later, what is now Paradox Sports has conducted hundreds of clinics and trips welcoming thousands of participants with disabilities into the rock climbing community. In February 2017, Wheel:Life and Comfort Medical sponsored the Ouray ice climbing trip. Mike Neustedter, executive director of Paradox Sports, chatted with Wheel:Life about the non-profit and how they are bringing adaptive climbing to gyms and mountains across North America. Ask your local gym about adaptive climbing in 2019!

Lesson to carry into 2019:  Everyone could use a little adventure in their lives!

Pauline Victoria Shares Why She’s Creating a Media Outlet for the Disability Community

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While Pauline Victoria’s parents were preparing for their first child to arrive, prenatal visits showed no signs of abnormality. So when doctors discovered the infant had no arms and only one partially formed leg upon birth, it was a surprise to all. As was typically the case at the time, the hospital advised her parents to leave her at an institution for children with disabilities and move on with their lives without her. But for her parents, that was never an option. A combination of nurture and tough love molded Victoria into the successful woman she is today having worked in an assortment of industries and recently launching her own media network for the disability community, One Leg Up Productions.

Lesson to carry into 2019:  Don’t wait for the world to change for you. Go out and create the changes you want to see!

The Story of Two Guys, a Wheelchair, and El Camino

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What was simply meant to be two best friends hiking El Camino de Santiago together, as literally millions have done before them, turned out to be so much more than either of them could have ever imagined or expected. In the documentary I’ll Push You, we follow the two men, as one pushes the other in his wheelchair, throughout their journey from the moment the idea for the 500-mile trek across Northern Spain is conceived to reuniting with their wives upon completion of the pilgrimage — and all the muddy ups, rocky downs, and even paved straightaways in between.

Lesson to carry into 2019:  “You don’t need to have all the answers to pursue a dream.” -Justin Skeesuck

Wheel:Life wishes all of our readers a happy, healthy, adventurous 2019. Stay with us throughout the new year for more stories from people breaking down barriers, defying stereotypes, and working toward a better world for all!

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