Published: 26 June, 2008, 23:34
Edited: 26 June, 2008, 23:34
A group of people with special needs have moved to a remote village in the Leningrad region, and made it their home. They work alongside local residents, doing tasks they thought they would never be able to perform.
The sort of people who came to live in the isolated village of Svetlana are usually termed as having special needs, but they actually don't need very much. In the sleepy Russian hamlet, 17 disabled people aged between 18 and 54 have found a new home living and working alongside the residents.
Thirty-one-year-old Sergey Novikov, who suffers from cerebral trauma, says he gets peace and quiet. He used to live in Peterhof, 30km from Saint Petersburg.
“It's so beautiful here! And so calm! There are so many people and cars in the city, it was just tiring me out!”
Sarah Hagnauer, the village director, first came to this village from Scotland 14 years ago, when people with physical difficulties started to arrive.
“It’s everythingall for such people to be able to come to Svetlana and find those they can live with, not to live alone, to find work which they can do,” she said.
Every one of the 50 or so villagers has their own task – baking bread, taking care of farm cattle and they all work together in the field tending crops.
The more able villagers work side by side with the new residents, many of whom have come from far afield.
Ludwig came from southern Germany ten months ago. He is a cheese maker. Like all Germans, he had been called up to serve in the army, but had the chance to come to Svetlana and provide a different kind of service.
“You learn so much from these people living with them. It makes you more responsible. I think here we are helping people, which is more useful than serving in the army,” he says.
Elena Vasechkina brought her 22-year-old-son Dima, a cerebral palsy patient. She thinks he will be happier here than in a hospital:
“There is an atmosphere of a hospital at hospitals. Here they can live a full life”, she said.
Sara Hagnauer says there is a desperate need for more villages like this one to provide a refuge for hundreds of thousands of others with disabilities living on their own all across the country, but that will require not only time and money, but also changes in public awareness.