"I am happy to go to the subway"

The whole life of Ani passes the concrete fences of orphanages and boarding schools. And only when she goes to work unaccompanied - she feels free

We help employment and accompanied accommodation for people with disabilities collected 1,855,823 R required 1,892,668 R help

The fact that Anya is an orphanage can be understood by speech. She says “living” instead of “neighbors”, “ward” instead of “room”. He does not say “I need to go home,” says “I’ll be late at the boarding school.”

“The boarding school is not a house,” Anya says. After her work, we go for a walk in the park. At this moment, she feels along with passers -by. That she is the same as they are an adult. Everyone runs out of work, and she is from work. Only they will come home, and Anya in a boarding school.

Anya drinks tea before work in the workshop photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

“Very insulting. That never lived at home when she was small. I have never lived at home since birth. I am still very angry with this, offended, enviable. When I walk, I go around the city, I see: people live a normal life in the apartment. They have freedom, I also really want to - freedom, normal life. ”

Three boxes

Anya left Anya in the hospital, Anya knows nothing about her and dad and no one to learn from. The memories of the life of Ani in the head are laid out into three boxes: the first orphanage, the second orphanage. She only remembers about the first that she did not have a favorite toy or game there. And before the first class, she was simply put on a bus and brought to the second orphanage, where there was a school. “In the morning after breakfast, the teacher Natalya Anatolyevna took me to the bus, and that’s it.”

The school was on the territory of the orphanage, inside the same concrete, in green and white stripes, fence. The school time ended with exams, without a holiday and the last call. Ani never in his life had a graduation with a concert, a beautiful dress and farewell songs.

Anya works in the workshop photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

As thousands of children with a delay in development in the orphan system, at eighteen years old, Anya moved from an orphanage to a neuropsychiatric boarding school. As she says, "acted."

“Did you always know that you will go to the PNI from the orphanage?”

- I have long known, from a small age.

“What did you know about PNI?”

- Well, I thought that I would live a normal life, that it would be good in PNI. When I arrived, unfortunately, it became not very good. I thought about the good, but it did not get very good. There, residing wider [than in an orphanage], there are some evil and offend me.

Be an adult

To be an adult means to be able to protect yourself, to leave where you feel bad. But if you are an orphan, if you have a developmental delay and you live in PNI, then you are completely defenseless.

Dishes after processing photos: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

Ani has poor vision, and she needs glasses. For several months, the neighbors on the boarding school called Anya “a bespectacled fool”, and she could not protect herself, did not have the opportunity to move to another floor or to another boarding school. Only once she could not stand it, with all the anger she threw glasses on the floor, they broke - and Anya did not wear glasses in the boarding school. Together with the sister of mercy, I bought new ones, but wears them on the street, and squints in the boarding school. But hearing mockery is worse than seeing blurry objects.

It is also an adult that means to protect your personal space and determine where it begins. Anya tries with all her might, but in a boarding school, several more women of different ages live in one chamber. The residents are handed over to the laundry, and it is erased all together. Anya came up with: she goes to the shower with her delicious gel and does not use public soap. He erases his underpants and bras with his hands and hangs not to dry on a common dryer (sometimes they disappear there, Anya says that they steal), and on the battery behind her bed. Such trifles help Ana appropriate her life, feel like an individual, independent person.

Anya processes a plate, removing all the bumps of the photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD Anya works in the workshop photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

Anya studied in college for landscaping. She was not chosen by her specialty, so they were distributed in the orphanage. If Anya chose, she would have become a cook. But she liked items in college: dendrology, botany, the basics of green construction. For two years, the teacher brought their group to classes and took it back. It was impossible to go to study. When it was time for graduation in college, Anya already lived in PNI, and that day there was no accompanying person to bring Anya to the holiday. “They brought me a diploma to a boarding school and gave me a social worker, I didn’t even see him normally, they didn’t let him hold him.”

“You see, I have a life, I have never seen the graduation.”

But the hardest thing was when Ani's pandemic and boarding school, like all the boarding schools, came to the entrance and exit. Anya by that time had been working for five days a week for a whole year, and then she was locked again. “Some residents fluttered my nerves, offended, commanded. It was very disappointing that it was impossible to leave the boarding school. Walking there is not interesting in the territory - everywhere a fence. I have seen this fence all my life, from birth. ”

What is a normal life

In April 2019, Any life changed. She had real work with duties and salaries. And most importantly - with the need to come to work, which means to leave the boarding school.

Anya photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

In Russia, it is very difficult for a person with disabilities to find a job. According to the data in the spring of 2018, in Moscow, only about 30 percent of people with disabilities have been employed. Ana was lucky: she got into this percentage and works in the creative association "Circle". This is a charity fund, which has been accompanied by adults with disabilities for seven years. People with mental and mental disorders who live in PNI, as well as people with limited hearing and vision, receive a real work here. In workshops, they are engaged in ceramics, soap, landscaping and production of candles. Discharged dishes, soap and candles before the holidays often buy in whole batches business companies. Anya works in landscaping and ceramic workshops, but she also works as a cleaner: she sweeps and washes the floors, helps to restore order in the kitchen. Five days a week she gets up at six in the morning and goes to the subway with two transfers.

Anya goes to the customer with samples of ceramics, which is produced by their creative association photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

- What is the happiest time in your life? - I ask Anya. We are sitting on a bench in Gorky Park and drinking coffee from tall plastic cups.

- The one that is now: I work in the city, I go to the subway myself. This is the best. I walk, I communicate with you as a normal person. It’s only bad that I live in a boarding school.

There are many people in the park, they ride bicycles and scooters, eat ice cream, opposite us the company dances on the grass. Anya several times admits that she envies them.

- People live in a normal life, they have freedom, they do not need to sign any statements. Walk how much you will fit, even at night, but we can’t.

The first in Ani's life is a visit to an ordinary hairdresser : Andrey Lyubimov for TD The first in the life of Ani haircut in an ordinary hairdresser photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

Anya loves Moscow and focuses on the subway. The favorite places of Moscow are divided into those where she went herself, and those where they drove a bus from the orphanage. At the Cosmonautics Museum at VDNH - by bus, Anya was lost there. The hairdresser - recently, at twenty -four years old, came for the first time in her life, she cut her hair briefly. The Temple of Tsarevich Demetrius at the Oktyabrskaya metro station - the sisters of mercy used to accompany, and now on Sundays Anya drives herself and is worth the service. In the temple, Anya prays to leave the boarding school for accompanied accommodation. “So that I sleep alone in the room. To have your own personal TV, wardrobe, bedside table, bed. I would buy a tape recorder to listen to music. ”

Thanks to the “Circle Circle” fund, several people with mental disorders already live in apartments of accompanying living. Perhaps the queue of Ani will come soon.

In the meantime, she really values ​​her cleaning lady. The most important thing for her in this work is not even a salary, but the opportunity to leave the boarding school for almost a whole day. For the first time, Anya went to the metro at twenty-two years, in April 2019.

Anya holds in her hands a package with samples of ceramics, which is produced by their creative association photo: Andrey Lyubimov for TD

The fact that for a home is sometimes a heavy service is to go early in the morning in a crowded metro car for routine work - for a person from PNI, real happiness. The fragile minutes of sensation of dignity, independence and involvement in the world of adults.

Please support the Circle Creative Association Foundation, which gives the work of Ana and other people with disabilities. Sign up for a monthly donation, for you it can be a very small amount - the cost of a cup of coffee - but it is important for the fund. Money will go to the salary of curators of workshops and workers with mental violations, as well as renting apartments of an accompanied residence. Thanks to your contribution, dozens of adults from PNI will be able to go to work on the subway and at the same time be absolutely happy. Thank you!