Page 42 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.

Nina Byrko

KFC Franchising Business Manager
Yum! Restaurants Russia, Moscow

I Help Them to be Needed

Since 2013 I have been volunteering in the community of par-
ents bringing up children with Down syndrome.
First, we communicate with parents, they need support not
to give up and maintain their faith that they can bring up their
kids and prepare them for the adult life. This is so hard to accept
that your kid is special. Of course, the attitude to people with dis-
abilities has changed lately, but there are still a lot of obstacles
that do not let them live a full life, and there are lots of difficulties,
limitations and stress in the life of their parents.
When I come to the center I talk to the mothers, we drink
tea, chit-chat, and these are 10 minutes they devote solely to
themselves.
Second, we deal with the kids who need social skills and train-
ing for autonomous living. After graduating a corrective school
these kids are not recruited anywhere, forced to stay home. It is
important these special kids are beneficial to the society.
At some point I understood, if you want to be beneficial to the
society, you need to do something for its benefit. Now my vol-
unteers’ team is comprised of the kids with Down syndrome. We
have been visiting the military hospital named after Burdenko,
where young guys from distant locations are treated. We come
with some snacks and gifts – we make cakes and souvenirs on
our own. In one of the buildings the pictures of my students are
hanging on the walls. People with Down syndrome are very tal-
ented, by the way. For more than 6 years we have been cooper-
ating with the Tretyakov Gallery. In Mach each year, on the World
Down Syndrome Day, an exhibition of my kids’ paintings is held –
at the best site of the country!
The most important for me is that together with volunteers
we have arranged a small printing house where the kids are
learning the bookbinding skills. This means that these teenagers
have a chance for self-fulfillment, a chance to master a profession
and practice a useful activity and to live, in full sense of this word.
It means that they will be NEEDED!