Photo: Aida Kolpakova / Facebook. All rights reserved.For most Kazakh citizens, children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) exist in a parallel universe, a non–existent world where “normal” people will never have to tread – or at least don’t think they ever will, even today. A quarter century after the demise of the USSR, many people who were brought up and educated in the Soviet period are still naively convinced that in Kazakhstan there are no people with either physical or learning disabilities.
You never see these people anywhere. The infrastructure of Kazakhstan’s towns and villages makes no allowance for the needs of their disabled residents. Wheelchair users are not only unable to access public transport independently – they can’t even leave their homes. Even the country’s large cities, such as the capital Astana, Almaty and Shymkent have only recently begun to think about the needs of people with disabilities, and even then are making slow progress. The relevant laws and declarations still only exist on paper.
In Kazakhstan, the only people who need SEND children are their families. The state’s child protection services lack any concept of unconditional love towards them. Parents worry about their children’s future: what will happen to them when they, their main guardians, are gone and their care will be in the hands of the state? Parents, for their part, do everything they can to ensure that their children are educated and socialised. Most of the organisations and rehabilitation and therapeutic services for people with learning disabilities have been set up by parents themselves, often with active support from people with other disabilities.
