Maria Fleta

Maria Fleta finished secondary school as a teacher of first education. In this occupation she worked for 32 years in a kindergarten. For the last ten
years she has worked as a director of this kindergarten.

She got married in 1977. At this time her husband, Marek, was already diagnosed with MS and he had to stop working. The marriage of Maria and Marek ran without problems until 1980. Then things became worse. Since 1980 Marek was in a hospital once, sometimes twice, a year. 1982 was
one of the worst years in Marek’s life. After a severe optic neuritis attack he became partially blind. That made him completely depressed. He spent all his time at home doing nothing.

It was Maria who inspired him to found a local community of the Polish
MS Society in Gniezno. He did it in 1996. Maria not only took care of her husband, but she also became his "personal assistant and driver" in order to bring him to the meetings. The Community in Gniezno had 50 persons with MS. Marek and Maria knew all of them personally. They used to visit all of them and help them in their daily life.

The activity of Maria grew in June 1998 when she retired. Maria was the initiator in making their community a local branch of the Polish MS Society in Gniezno. It was done during a Council Meeting in June 1999. In this time she was chosen to be the branch secretary. Now she still occupies this post and looks after her husband. She attends all meetings and conferences together with Marek who is the chairman of the branch and she simultaneously fulfills the role of secretary and a driver. That is to say she keeps the branch running, she knows everybody, takes care of everybody and finds time and power for the everyday fight against MS. That is not easy, Marek her husband feels differently, sometimes so bad that he has to use a wheelchair. Even though she spends a lot of time looking after her husband, Maria still launches out into her job in the MS branch.



Over a few years the local branch in Gniezno became one of the best working MS communities in Poland. Maria also inspired cooperation with The Polish Association for the Blind in order to organize a fixed rehabilitation period for partially blind people with MS. She also formed an advisory point for people with MS which is under her direction. Maria contributed to the formation of new MS communities in Znin, Wrzesnia and Witkowo.

Their friends used to say – Where Marek there is Maria. But to say the truth it was Maria who taught Marek and other persons with MS new thinking: You have MS – MS has not You.

2006 Nominations

The judges of the award would like to express their thanks, admiration and support to all the nominees, all of whom receive an MSIF Certificate acknowledging their nomination.

• Malcolm Gray, Canada


• Alix Scrivener, New Zealand


• Jim Richards, USA