Wellness Champion Profile: Richard Peter, First Nations Paralympian – FNHA

Nov 23, 2023

Richard Peter is a gifted athlete with a natural talent for basketball. His basketball accomplishments include winning numerous medals and accolades on the international stage, with stints on the Canadian national team. Now 50 years old, he is retired from competing on an elite level, and a member of BC’s Sports Hall of Fame. He remains active with badminton.

Richard’s athleticism and love of sport is all the more impressive given the fact that since he was five years old, he has been living with a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him from the waist down. It was in his teens that he found and began playing the sport he would excel at: wheelchair basketball.

When Richard was growing up in the ’70s, there was little awareness and knowledge of spinal cord injuries, and because he lived in a small community, a Cowichan Tribe [Coast Salish] reserve near Duncan, BC, accessibility was a major issue.

The injury was not only transformative for him, Richard says, but also for his family and community. “Everybody stepped up to be as inclusive as possible after it happened.” That meant modifying his home, and his community making accommodations for the drastic changes in his life.

Read More: https://www.fnha.ca/about/news-and-events/news/wellness-champion-profile-richard-peter-first-nations-paralympian

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