– It was really difficult at first. She came home in tears and complained that she was bullied but now it’s OK. She goes to school by herself, she made some friends – Svetlana, Nastia’s mother shares her story. Nastia is a girl with disability who studies in a common class with other kids.

Office for the rights of persons with disabilities continues a series of interviews with employers who are ready to employ PWDs or have already done it. This time we visited an interesting person – the director of “Inva-auto-service” Alexander Makhortov. In his repair shop cars are equipped with manual control. He is a very interesting and enterprising person: started his own business and is planning to realize another business idea. He plays wheelchair basketball and considers that the main thing is not to give up.

Even in the capital of our country there are not enough special conditions for persons with disabilities. There are a lot of problems in Oblast centers and there is no need to talk about the conditions in small towns. The program “Acting with unlimited possibilities” which is being realized by the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities and School of leaders (Poland) helps active people to solve local issues and realize useful projects. The program “Acting with unlimited possibilities” was created a year ago but nevertheless its participants managed to organize several projects aimed at assisting PWDs. Its second year graduates are not just following the steps of their predecessors but they are looking for new ways of their ideas realization. They presented their initiatives on October 25-26 2014 at the final meeting of all the participants.

The director of commercial structure “Hypermarket of services 124” Igor Striga doesn’t hide the fact that the main goal of his company is to earn money, but at the same time adds: “There are no slacks to people with disabilities during employment process and work”. More than 20 years ago he became a wheelchair-bound person himself and considers that by employing persons with special needs he is working for prospects. We will know from the first hands how they manage to be the best in their business having more than 70 percent of disabled employees.

Polotsk pupils are told about life of persons with disabilities. “People among People!” – is a series of information events held in Polotsk schools with the support of the Office for the rights of persons with disabilities (Belarus) and “School of leaders” (Poland) by two local NGOs – association of parents raising children with disabilities “Strumok” and sport club of young disabled “Prometei”. Initiators of the program Natalia Pronkina, Sergei Butko and Svetlana Maslovskaya told why there was a necessity in such meetings and how pupils understand information about persons with disabilities.

We continue to “Sign with heart” the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Several dozen of organizations and hundreds of concerned persons have signed the public Memorandum. The most active even get souvenirs from the Office on the rights of persons with disabilities. 100^th person who signed the Memorandum in social network got souvenirs with symbolic (there is a special sign for the participants in profile picture).

She knows about myths and stereotypes existing about persons with disabilities from the first hands, because 15 years ago she became disabled herself. Other problems appeared together with health problems: search of a new job, break-up with a close person, raising two kids alone. Many people would give up but Nadezhda Ivanovna says: “May be I’m a lucky person, and I just had no other choice as to continue to live and to work otherwise I wouldn’t be able even to get up in the morning.” Now she is the director of a private firm “Minsk factory of braking equipment” where more than a half of the staff are people with disabilities. 

In order people with disabilities could realize their right to labour In Poland there is a special profession – labour trainer. You shouldn’t think that this is an assistant. As a rule an assistant helps a person with disability not in his working place, for example helps to get home from work. Labour trainer accompanies, gives advices and guides in professional activity. He eases work of a person with disability: gives advices in a profession taking into account peculiarities of every concrete person, helps to organize a working place or even to find a job – to pick a good job advertisement, to prepare resume or to wear proper clothes for job interview. Labour trainer becomes a kind of a “life-saver” but he never does a job instead of his “colleague” but just directs him.

Moskovskiy district organization of NGO “Belarusian society of disabled” was the organizer of an art event for people with disabilities. The district branch of the organization has about 1500 members and about 30 of them are interested in expressing their talents. 

Monitoring of the accessibility of environment was presented in Minsk to public in the frames of Accessibility Week. It was held before the Hockey World Championship which took place in Minsk. The monitoring was held by volunteers with the help of specially created “Barrier-free environment monitoring tool”. Volunteers evaluated objects that could be used by potential participants of sporting events: railway station and airport, sport arenas, hotels and hostels, commercial units and other service providers.