Despite the war, Natalia Ostrohliad and NGO “Autism. Conscious Parenting” are helping people with mental disabilities

Despite the war, Natalia Ostrohliad and NGO “Autism. Conscious Parenting” are helping people with mental disabilities
4 Серпня 2022
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Public organizations of people with disabilities (Disability NGOs) have been actively involved in helping victims since the very first days of the full-scale war. Among the NGOs’ leaders, there are many women who often do the impossible to help Ukraine. Such women are described in the project “Enhancing the Leadership of Women with Disabilities in Gender-Oriented Humanitarian Responses”, being implemented by the National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine (NAPD) and funded by the United Nations Women’s Fund for Peace and Humanitarian Aid (WPHF).

Our next heroine is Natalia Ostrohliad from Zaporizhzhia city, head of the NGO “Zaporizhzhia Regional Organization “Autism. Conscious Parenting” (hereinafter – NGO “Autism. Conscious Parenting”). This organization is a NAPD member. Natalia’s daughter has autism, and the efforts to improve the quality of life of the child was one of the reasons for engaging in public activities.

Natalia began her public activities in 2016 when she organized information campaigns for World Autism Awareness Day. The NGO “Autism. Conscious Parenting” pursues its activities in two areas: firstly, classes for children and later for young people with autism, and, secondly, online meetings together with communication within the Facebook community “Autism. Conscious Parenting”, which was initially launched as a local community for residents of Zaporizhzhia city and region.

Natalia’s experience in organizing online meetings for children with autism and their parents proved to be useful during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the outbreak of the large-scale invasion of the russian federation on the territory of Ukraine. Also, the collaboration with the All-Ukrainian Forum “Parents for Early Childhood Intervention” has become another direction of ​​activities for the NGO “Autism. Conscious Parenting”. It is precisely early intervention that Natalia Ostrohliad calls the first step of inclusion. The “Autism. Conscious Parenting” organization has many plans and dreams. For instance, Natalia is already thinking about a separate home for children who are growing up; she is exploring modular houses and gradually planning to create a training housing in one of them, where a person with autism would be practicing his or her life skills outside of the family, where everything is familiar and everyone is ready to help, and thus to make sure that young people could care of themselves living in a separate dwelling.

On February 24, Natalia Ostrohliad, like many other Ukrainians, woke up to a new and brutal reality of war. Natalia did not plan and does not plan to leave, but since the very first days of the war she has been trying to preserve the organization and projects that were already successfully operating. To help the parents of the target children, Natalia started to arrange online meetings for them as well – immediately after the classes for children. In addition, the “Autism. Conscious Parenting” NGO organized a temporary stay center – a transit apartment – where the families who have just arrived from the occupied territories in Zaporizhzhia can stay over a night to catch their breath, have some rest, and continue their evacuation farther. In all these activities, Serhii Pishchulin, a volunteer and the co-founder of the “Autism. Conscious Parenting” NGO, is helping.

“They contact us, find us, and tell us when they are arriving,” says Natalia Ostrohliad. “Serhii meets these people, arranges their accommodation in the apartment, and they schedule their picking up at the end of their stay. We are trying to help each family with further evacuation route, looking for the best option where this family with the child could be transferred further. Usually, people stay for a night – to have a wash, a sleep, and a rest. Since the beginning of the Center’s activities, 23 families have stayed in it, which is 52 people in total, including more than 25 people with mental disabilities, in particular, with autism and Down’s syndrome.”

The activities of public organizations of people with disabilities are practically impossible without the help of colleagues from other organizations and state institutions, as well as international organizations. The National Assembly of People with Disabilities of Ukraine, together with the United Nations Women’s Fund for Peace and Humanitarian Aid, has also supported Natalia Ostrohliad in her humanitarian response.

In spite of the challenges brought by the war, Natalia Ostrohliad and the “Autism. Conscious Parenting” NGO continue their activities for the good of both people with mental disabilities and entire Ukraine.

 

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The project “Enhancing the Leadership of Women with Disabilities in Gender-Oriented Humanitarian Responses in Ukraine” aims at strengthening the leadership and participation of women’s NGOs and networks of women with disability and women raising children with disabilities in gender-oriented humanitarian responses.

The United Nations Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund (WPHF) is a unified global financial mechanism designed exclusively to support the participation of women in peacebuilding and humanitarian responses. WPHF is a flexible and rapid financing tool supporting quality interventions to enhance the capacity of local women to prevent conflict, respond to crises and emergencies, and seize key peacebuilding opportunities. WPHF is an innovative partnership among its member states, the UN, and the civil society, with all the stakeholders represented in its global Financial Council.

 

Additional information on the UN Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund and its activities across the globe can be obtained on the Fund’s webpage: www.WPHFund.org and www.WPHFund.org/

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