"The state was not ready." An activist interview - about evacuation of people with disabilities and their safety during a full -scale war

Fight for Right is evacuating people with disabilities, providing them with humanitarian, financial assistance, legal and psychological consultations, as well as rehabilitation assistance. Video of the day how to make Ukraine inclusive and that Fight for Right will do after winning, in an interview with Radio NV, the head of the organization Yulia Sachuk told.

- How has your activity changed since February 24, what did you succeed during this time? How did you manage to rebuild your own work? - Until February 24, we worked, probably as a classic human rights organization. They were engaged in advocacy, trying to improve Ukrainian legislation and bring it to international standards, in particular in the field of protection of people with disabilities.

We also tried to strengthen the community of people with disabilities so that they also know about their rights and could protect them. Our goal is to really improve the lives of people with disabilities in Ukraine. We had a variety of projects. These are information campaigns, training for people with disabilities, for public authorities.

We worked with the Central Election Commission in the framework of establishing the suffrage of people with disabilities; With the Ministry of Social Policy, with many bodies, trying to these international standards, when people are comfortable to live in the country and their rights are not violated, to introduce from us, in Ukraine. But there was a war.

Probably a little bit of my skepticism, or perhaps realism, and the position of the team helped us to be more or less prepared, in particular in terms of evacuation of the team. From the first day of the war, when we did not understand what was happening, we have already received from the participants of our network, friends, colleagues inquiries for help. From the first days of the war we began to help people with disabilities.

My skepticism or realism was also manifested in being a student of the international law program in the field of people with disabilities in Ireland, the same year, a month before the invasion, began to be alarmed, asking international expert occurs in countries that are standards. Tried to attract partners, large organizations to pay [attention] to the issue of a possible Russian invasion.

This enabled us to accumulate resources because at that time we had no support from any of the organizations. I understand what is happening now: large international organizations will not be very effective in the direct support plan, the one that people with disabilities need here and now. Therefore, on February 24, we had at least a network of people who supported us, we understood the standards and we had resources for our own evacuation.

- How did you prepare this plan? What was the most important thing to provide what to predict? Did you work inside the script, what will everyone do? - So. We worked as a scenario and the fact that who would have in a alarming suitcase. As the head of the organization, I made sure that people have funds, about indicative plans where we will gather what contacts should have, what to do if there is no connection. We have +/- everything was agreed. Next it was like a ball.

Many members of our team are people with disabilities: someone with visual impairments, someone-a musculoskeletal system, someone uses a wheel chair, someone does not hear. Therefore, the moments of accessibility were also calculated. The fact that we evacuated and left on time made it possible to work further. From the first week, we managed to contact those organizations that are involved in emergency people with disabilities, including America. They became our regular partners.

Together with them we have already built what requests we can take, how it happens, how to verify, how to find transport. We managed to raise nearly half a million euros to help people with disabilities, and [helped] many people with disabilities from all over the world. We have continued our work responsibly. Today we have already helped more than three thousand Ukrainians and Ukrainians with disabilities. We have more than six thousand appeals: each request is worked out individually.

In our standards of work - to help in each case. We have about 15 caresses, a hotline. In fact, they were our phones at first. We accept requests from the first day of the war to this day - have never had a day off. Today we provide evacuation. We continue to evacuate people from hot spots - Kramatorsk, Bakhmut, [in general] from Donetsk region, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv. We continue to look for shelter. We provide people with tickets if necessary.

We have our own fast, which international partners were leased to us. We have our own transport. We provide people with technical rehabilitation tools that are critical now for people with disabilities. Because even those scanty things that the state could give us, [not provided in time] - now this process is delayed. We also provide humanitarian assistance, legal advice, psychological support. It all works day after day almost 24/7.

- When you said that you started to evacuate from February 24, I tried to imagine how it happened, remembering how people left Kiev in traffic jams or what queues were on the railway. How did you find opportunities to leave people with disabilities in these circumstances? This is technically complicated. - In the first days, this happened at the level of consultations, for the most part, at the level of payment for the services of carriers. We paid very much money.

Very often, this assistance, especially at the beginning, when we did not have our own cars, was to give the maximum information and accompany a person.

- How do people, including summer, mothers with carts, people on carts, with impaired vision, hearing, who did not hear the sirens, learned about air anxiety and descended into bomb shelters? How much in Ukraine before the start of a full -scale invasion were at least some safety conditions adapted to people with disabilities? Do we have bomb shelters with ramps? Because I didn't notice them. - As far as we know, it was not and not, which is also very sad.

Even no general monitoring was carried out. But my colleague from Kamiansky even addressed the city authorities. The answer was deplorable. We understand that it is not only about Kamianske, but also about other cities. The miserable efforts were mostly public activists. This is both about bombos and notifications, that is, access to information. Even those pictures that were thrown and continue to throw in the channel, the blind person will not be able to read them.