BIO

Poznanian turned her illness into success. Wife, mother and grandmother, first and foremost an active woman.

Twenty-seven years ago she heard the diagnosis – advanced breast cancer, it was 1991, she didn’t know anything about cancer because she had nowhere else to learn. It was a taboo subject, women didn’t admit to having the disease and the media didn’t talk about it. At the time, 8,000 women were dying of breast cancer every year, and this information and her illness provoked a rebellion and a lack of acceptance that breast cancer was a taboo subject in Poland.

While still undergoing treatment, she founded the Amazon Club in Poznań, today the Poznań Amazon Association. Her aim was to speak openly about cancer and to bring together women affected like her by the disease. Her optimism prevailed and her commitment to organising the Club gave her wings. As a former sportswoman, she had been training rowing for 8 years in double sculls at the rowing club „04” and later at the Poznan Rowing Association „Tryton”, winning the Polish Championship in this discipline, she could not give in to stagnation due to the disease. She had to act. In 1993 the Federation of Amazons’ Associations was established, which currently unites 211 Amazons’ Clubs from all over Poland.

Krystyna became President of this organisation in 2000 and has been so to this day. Her goal as President of the Federation is to ensure that all Amazon Clubs in Poland have educational materials and tools to support women after breast cancer treatment, who are visited by volunteers in oncology hospitals. She actively participates in foreign congresses and international meetings of the Reach to Recovery movement, where she observes how women in other organisations around the world work and what they do. Throughout her activities, she has prioritised actions aimed at raising Polish women’s awareness of the importance of early detection of this disease; to this end, she has organised many prophylactic and educational actions, such as the „Run ahead of cancer” run and the „Healthy Habit – Healthy Breasts” campaign.

In 2003, for the first time, together with other Amazons, she took part in the World Dragon Boat Championships organised in Malta in Poznań, winning there the vice-championship of the world. She returned to her love – rowing in 2014, all the time training diligently, every year taking part in the European and World Masters Championships.
Thanks to her efforts, Poznań Amazons can benefit from massages, gymnastics, music and chore otherapy, swimming and are provided with psychological care. Under her leadership, the Federation, acting on behalf of other women, has obtained, among other things: reimbursement of breast prostheses, spa treatment, reimbursement of breast reconstruction, changes in lymphoedema treatment.

All of these activities have not gone unrecognised and so:
– in 1997 she was awarded the title Woman of the Year by the Business Professional Women Club in Poznań,
– in 2000, she became Wielkopolska Woman of the Year in the plebiscite of Radio Markury,
– in 2003, the Federation of Amazons Associations received a nomination for the Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation of Women with Breast Cancer from Re ach to Recovery,
– in 2003, Krystyna Wechmann received the Pro Publico Bono main award for the best civic initiative of nationwide scope, in the category: health care, social and charitable activities,
– in 2013, she was awarded the St. Camillus Special Award for her lifetime achievement by Fr Nowak of the Institute for Patients’ Rights and Health Education,
– in 2013, she won the title of Personality of the Year in Healthcare awarded by the Ter media publishing house,
– in 2015 she was the winner of the Women of Medicine competition organised by….., in – 2017 she was awarded the title „Supermen 2017” by The Institute of Strategy and Development Poland Foundation,
in 2017 she was included in the List of One Hundred Most Influential People in the Polish Health Care System, ranking 36th, a ranking that has been prepared for 15 years by the editors of Puls Medycyny.

She is proud to be at the head of such a powerful organisation. The shared successes and new challenges along the way help her think positively and continue to build 'bridges’. She looks with optimism to the future development of the Amazon community. And she is enjoying life. Thanks to the Amazon movement, today’s Polish woman with breast cancer has gone from being a victim, a passive patient, to becoming a conscious patient, a citizen for health, and the Federation has a real influence on national health policy.

Founder and current President of the Poznan Association of Amazons. President of the Federation of Amazons Associations – an organisation comprising 211 Amazon Clubs from all over Poland. Initiator and founder, as well as current President of the Polish Coalition of Oncology Patients – an organisation established to bring together oncology patient organisations and to be their voice in striving to improve the situation of health care in Poland.