Access to an Equal Education for Children and Youth with Disabilities in Russia
By Bruce Curtis, World Institute on Disability, and Denise Roza, Perspektiva
Over the past 10 years in Russia, with the emergence of disability advocacy NGOs and NGOs serving parents of disabled children and the passing of new federal and regional disability legislation, some significant social changes have occurred to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities. Today, occasional wheelchair ramps can be seen in Russian cities, limited assistive devices are being produced locally, employment programs for disabled people have been launched in several Russian cities, and a handful of integrated pre-school programs have been initiated in a few Russian cities. Finally, Kremlin officials have publicly acknowledged the huge problem of inaccessibility and the lack of federal support provided to the disability community
Despite the promise of these small social changes, disabled Russians still face daily discrimination, and attitudinal and physical barriers to education, employment, recreational activities, family life and more. Implementation mechanisms for fulfilling the promises of government services, such as those contained in Article #11 of the Russian Federal Law on the Social Protection of Persons with Disabilities, are still rarely enforced. Article #11 defines the Individual Program of Rehabilitation (IPR) as a mechanism for providing a person with disability services or technical aids, which are necessary for rehabilitation, including a primary school and college education. This federal law, however, is hardly being implemented today, as disabled people possess little knowledge about the IPR and its potential for obtaining a general education. Social services staff responsible for assisting disabled people in filling out the IPR enrollment form usually do not possess enough experience or knowledge to complete the IPR according to the disabled persons' legitimate needs. As a result, most persons with disabilities in Russia, and above all, young persons with disabilities, often experience inadequate and inferior education, community isolation and low self-esteem, and continue to be marginalized and deprived of the same rights and opportunities that other, non-disabled, citizens enjoy.
Even with these new laws, children with disabilities, youths and their parents continue to face significant attitudinal, architectural and financial barriers to an equal education including: 1) all schools are architecturally inaccessible; 2) parents of children in mainstream schools are often opposed to having their children study with disabled children; 3) the majority of teachers and administrators in mainstream schools and universities have little or no understanding of disability issues; 4) parents of disabled children are afraid to enroll their children into mainstream schools and usually have little or no information about access to education; 5) there is no or very limited accessible public transportation available in cities; 6) no additional services are provided by universities for students with disabilities; and, finally, 7) old stereotypes and misconceptions about disabled people still prevail in Russian society. These are merely a few of the barriers to education which Russian disabled students encounter daily. Unfortunately, few, if any, organized efforts are being made to break down these barriers to education.
Government statistics demonstrate that due to these barriers, the majority of disabled children in Russia, ages 7-18, are isolated in their homes, segregated in specialized institutions, or receive no education at all. In Samara, of the 4,200 disabled children in the city, only 150 are actually going to regular schools. In Nizhny Novgorod, there are nearly 5,000 disabled children, and only a few hundred actually attend classes at regular schools. Almost all disabled children are at home or in specialized schools. As a result, young disabled people are not being prepared for life in the community, to say nothing of entering the university or finding a job after school. In Nizhny Novgorod where there are approximately 8,000 young adults with disabilities, less than 200 are enrolled at the universities.
In 1998, Perspektiva, a Russian disability NGO, began collaborating with the Ukhta Society of Disabled People (USDP) in the Republic of Komi on projects aiming to empower disabled youths to live independent lives. During these projects, Disabled Youth Activist (DYA) teams in these cities acquired new skills and knowledge on how to be community activists, established new allies amongst local officials and community leaders, tested community change/advocacy strategies and proved to themselves and others that disability focused social activism can yield positive results. Since June 2000, Perspektiva continued this initiative and has been collaborating with the disability NGOs, Invatur of Nizhny Novgorod and Desnitsa of Samara, and they jointly implemented a project entitled, "Disabled Youths Promote Equal Rights and Opportunities."
This first experiment in community based advocacy was only a beginning, as social change about disability issues often requires much time, especially in Russian communities where there has been no prior history of disability inclusion. For this reason, Perspektiva and its regional partners, Invatur, Desnitsa, and the USDP, together with the World Institute on Disability, are now focusing on one major issue which is critical for the disability community: inclusive education. In addition to increasing disability awareness in their communities, the partners are working to sustain these new local, inclusive education partnerships by establishing a community coalition for inclusive education. The partners are also seeking legal advice from Russian and American lawyers on creating a community-based strategy to enforce existing Russian federal legislation that guarantees access to education, including Article #11 under the Individual Program of Rehabilitation.
Access to Education: New Community Based Advocacy Project in Russia
The "Access to Education" partnership project, partly funded by USAID through IREX, and partly through another new Perspektiva project, "Education- A Right for All," funded by the British Human Rights Fund, is building on previously successful project experiences and utilizing the DYA teams, now having 2-years of experience in Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Ukhta and Moscow, to improve community access to inclusive education for children and young adults with disabilities. The Access to Education Project just officially began in June 2002 and is funded through December 2003 in Nizhny Novgorod, Ukhta, Moscow and Samara. In order to break down the existing barriers to education, the partners are creating a community coalition with government agencies, educational institutions, parents' groups and other disability NGOs, which will help to empower disabled children and young adults to access a good education. A collaborative effort, which unites different sectors of the community, is essential, in order to effectively remove existing barriers to the equal education of all young disabled persons.
The Russian partners and WID believe that the skills and self-confidence of the Disabled Youth Activist teams in Nizhny Novgorod, Ukhta, Samara and Moscow are sufficiently developed to attempt the multi-year, social change goal of beginning to remove the barriers confronting disabled students who want to receive an appropriate and equal education in the Russian educational system. To successfully confront and remove these barriers to an equal education over several years, the Disabled Youth Activist teams are educating and mobilizing other disabled youth in the community to promote inclusive education at the schools through disability awareness training and presentations, as well as identifying and recruiting professional allies (teachers, lawyers, journalists, administrators) into a cross sector community coalition. The DYA teams also continue to raise awareness in the community, including schools, about issues related to access to education for children and young adults with disabilities and are establishing the organizational capacity within Desnitsa, Invatur, and the USDP for locally documenting disability issues on video and using these disability awareness videos to improve access to education by educating the general public. Ultimately, the partners hope to sustain these efforts using local community resources.
Perspektiva will provide an update on the outcomes of this collaborative partnership in the Spring of 2003. For more information about the "Access to Education" project and Perspektiva's other activities, visit their website at http://www.perspektiva-inva.da.ru.
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