Build "Hope"

The history of the Irkutsk Center “Nadezhda” began when the parents of several children with mental disability realized that their children grew up. That they are young, full of strength, could study and work, but the state cannot offer them anything - just lock the disabled in the house

Help hope to help

Sasha is a high, pretty blond 24 years old. Every morning, Sasha and her mother Irina Vladimirovna go by bus to work, and every morning mother internally contracts, waiting for the driver's reaction to Sashin a preferential ticket. With oblique views and laughs, she had already reconciled. But once the driver simply screamed on the whole bus, refusing to watch the certificate: “What disabled he is, you need to plow on it! There are no such disabled people! "

Despite excesses on the bus, Sasha is torn to work. For the third year, he works in the workshops of the Irkutsk regional public organization of childhood disabled "Nadezhda" , is engaged in painting, mastered woodworking and a weaving machine. Society, of course, is not yet ready for such guys on the street. It happens that girls begin to build eyes to a pretty young man, and then laugh at him in a voice.

Sasha runs out onto the porch of the Hoping Hopes under construction. Photo: Anton Klimov for TD

The history of "Hope" began in 2008, when the parents of several children with mental disability realized that their children had grown up. They are young, full of strength, could study and work, but the state cannot offer such people except the maintenance of disabled people in the houses of disabled people. After correctional schools that children end at 16-17, they most often have nowhere to go. Most are doomed to isolation in four walls under the supervision of parents - thus also deprived of the opportunity to work. Desperate to break through state obstacles, the parents themselves began to build a system of social and labor adaptation for grown children.

Desperate to break through through state obstacles, parents themselves build an adaptation system for grown children

Five families united and created craft workshops to provide children with business and help other families. Today, 14 people are engaged in “Nadezhda”. Every day they come to work and work until five in the evening. Only a dense daily schedule can give significant results in the development of certain skills, as well as allow parents to work such children. The founders of the workshops would like to involve more children in business, but the size of the room does not allow.

"Hope" is located in the semi -basement and not very bright room of an old residential building in Irkutsk. Five small workshops, gym, hall, kitchen-dining room, where everyone can get together, dine, celebrate holidays. In a small lobby, a rack with work: cars, airplanes, hedgehogs, turtles on wheels. Such products on the capital's shelves go as an eco-toy and are quite expensive. In addition to woodworking, there are also weaving, sewing, felting, candle and printing workshops. 12 teachers are engaged with the guys. Adjust all the stages of work to their individual characteristics and capabilities. They sew tacks, aprons, textile toys, traditional patchwork dolls, bedding. They themselves paint fabrics in the technique of a batik. Unique products are obtained. The guys sell them at the fair to invest in the construction of the future center.

Kolya and his mother Tatyana examine the new house of the center photo: Anton Klimov for TD

“We have developed a program of classes in which we included various areas that contribute to the maintenance of the intellectual health of the children and the development of labor skills,” says Tatyana Fedorova, chairman of the board of Nadezhda and the mother of 23-year-old Danila. “In addition to working in workshops, we are engaged in general subjects with children, read, study painting, walk.”

Even now, in the summer, on vacation, the "Nadezhdinians" collect herbs, work in the garden, make workpieces. The wrappers will also be sold at the fair, and what will not be sold will go to the refrigerator.

Children need to be occupied all the time. At home, in close apartments, it is difficult for them to find a permanent occupation. And the accumulating young energy can be destructive . For example, Sasha is inclined to occupy himself and crossed firewood for all neighbors during the holidays. “And Danila, if you leave it to himself, will lie, do nothing, in the end it will result in hysteria,” says Tatyana.

The younger worker of the workshops of Kolya, the son of the priest of the local parish, 20 years. Angelic gaze, shy smile. “In fact, this angel is very sketchy,” his mother admits. “And a lover of manipulations.” Kolya is a victim of a re -vaccination of DTP. After it, the boy began tremor and other deviations of development. You need a lot of patience for classes with him. He does not really like to work, he would prefer to consider glossy magazines for days. But it is possible to captivate him.

Danila and his father Valery photo: Anton Klimov for TD

“ It is very important for them to feel useful. For them, this center is even more important than for us, parents, ”continues Tatyana. - We have long proved that our children need support, that they need a life -long program of social and labor rehabilitation, as abroad. And we have all programs for children under 18 years of age. Adults with mental disabilities are only ready to keep locked up on drugs, forbidding them to use forks, needles, tools . And we prove that you can achieve a lot if we approach work systematically. ”

Adults with mental disability are simply kept locked up on drugs

In the small lobby of Hope is noisy, the guys have been on the holidays for several weeks for several weeks, have not seen each other for a long time, missed. “They can not speak everything, but find methods of communication,” Sasha’s mother smiles. Children look into the kitchen, where parents are set on the table. Usually, during work, all together dine and afternoon. Parents set the duty schedule and prepare for everyone.

At the table we all fit with difficulty. Closely, stuffy. “Cockroaches run,” the parents warn. - What we just did not. But the house is completely old, mostly not very prosperous people live. And this year he was put under demolition. ”

Tatyana Anatolyevna, director and founder of Hope Photo: Anton Klimov for TD

“From the very beginning, we wanted to build our house, and not just a separate building, but a whole estate, where there would be a garden with a greenhouse, a workshop, a sports ground. And immediately they began to look for a suitable site, ”says Tatyana Fedorova. - In 2009, we found such a site and the next four years we spent on permission and approval. Survived four governors. Each time it was necessary to receive a new signature. ”

Finally, three years ago, the construction of a new center began for people with mental disability, in which up to 30 people can study and work. They began to build at their own expense, on donations, to grants.

“We were sure that the state would connect when we start building. But they didn’t get help, ”the parents complain. “Now we get only a subsidy to pay for housing and communal services,” says Tatyana Fedorova. - The site was leased and at first they paid seventy thousand rubles a year for eleven acres, but since it was not possible to build the center for three years, we raised the rental rate to one hundred and ninety thousand, after contacting the governor, the rate was reduced to one hundred and thirty. A lot of effort went to clear the site. There was a burnt house in which the local homeless people lived in the summer. They had to agree with them that they would find a new shelter . ”

Kolya and Maxim photo: Anton Klimov for TD

To communicate with government agencies and fill out numerous papers, tender applications are the case of Larisa Mikhailovna. Her son, Alexei, is one of the most adult “Nadezhdinists”, he is 37 years old. He knows how to read, write and comes to work in a taxi. Until three years old, says Larisa Mikhailovna, he developed like all children, she was worried only that her son did not say: “I drove him to the doctors, but everyone reassured me that the boys were starting to speak later.” And in three and a half years, the psychiatrist looked at the frightened baby and categorically stated: “Is he a fool, what do you want from him?” Alyosha spoke a year later with the help of a very young speech therapist. He finished three classes in the village. It draws well. In the workshops, he is trusted with work that requires special perseverance and scrupulousness.

Standing in a bifched area, it is difficult to imagine what “cities-garden” here will be in a couple of years. But parents proudly show the future center.

The box of the three -story building is already ready: there are walls, roof and windows. Now the most important thing is communications, and then the finish.

Kolya photo: Anton Klimov for TD

In May and June, as soon as Siberian weather began to allow, everyone worked together at a construction site, cleaned the territory, dismantled construction garbage and inheritance of homeless people who lived here in the summer. Helped students-volunteers who were caught in the walls of the walls. The parishioners of the nearest church came to work. Now the building is already at the stage when it is nice to walk along the premises smelling fresh putty and mark the sockets and switches, discuss where there will be a table in the future dining room, which is comfortable to gather together. Dreaming of how a winter garden will be bloomed in a bay window. Imagine what the living room and large bright workshops will be, where it will be possible to build a greenhouse, break the garden and, perhaps, even start chicken.

True, state standards have established the agronomic appetites of "Nadezhdinists". They are undertaken to equip 10 parking spaces in the territory - these are the norms. And it doesn’t matter that the guys themselves will never get drunk, and in most families there are no cars.

The construction of the center is carried out completely at the expense of parents, sponsors and donors. Let's help children with mental features of development to find their center - house and work. Now they very, very much need funds for laying communications and decoration of the premises.