Those “upstairs” aren’t concerned
March 21, 2012, marks the 7th anniversary of the World Down Syndrome Day. In Ukraine children with Down syndrome are barred access to school/college and subsequent employment.
According to Serhii Kurianov, president of the All-Ukrainian Down Syndrome Charity Foundation (uniting more than 520 families across Ukraine), such babies are born in every country, in every urban and rural community. Over 420 babies with this syndrome are born in Ukraine every year. Sad but true, few of these are accepted by the parents. Women say they’re recommended abandoning such babies at the maternity hospital, and that such children should be institutionalized after reaching nursery age.
Kurianov says children with Down syndrome may turn into full-fledged communal members, given the right kind of medical treatment and education. These individuals will be able to finish grade schools, master [unqualified] trades, and find adequately paid jobs. As it is, such children stand no practical chance in Ukraine: “Such children, being absolutely prepared for enrolment in a daycare center, are barred access, with an average of 25 out of 420 such children born every year being allowed access to grade school.”
Says Tetiana Mykhailenko, program coordinator, Early Down Syndrome Relief Center: “The fact that children with Down syndrome aren’t made welcome at any grade school is a problem that relates to all post-Soviet countries; it is the kind of attitude our society shows to its physically handicapped members. Too bad, our NGO is in no position to establish schools or daycare centers for such children; all we can do is help the parents prepare their children. These children are absolutely socially adjusted, except that they don’t know where to go.” This center started functioning in the spring of 2010, based on the NGO “Down Syndrome.” It remains the only one of its kind in Kyiv. Interestingly, the government hasn’t supported any of the center’s initiatives or projects. “Every statement remains on paper,” sums up Mykhailenko.
In regard to the DS children enrolled in grade schools, their parents say their curriculum is inadequate. According to Oksana Muzychenko, her afflicted eight-year-old son Artem and his six-year-old sister are first-grade pupils since last fall. They are in an experimental class which is conducted by a teacher and by an assistant. “A year passes and we can see that such special curriculum is no good for our children, that it isn’t aimed developing our children in every respect, that it isn’t systemic; that the teaching staff doesn’t have the required experience; that these people aren’t motivated.”
Elsewhere in the civilized world DS-afflicted children are enrolled in regular daycare centers and school and eventually receive jobs.
