Living with Heart. The Value of People with Special Needs. - еnglish subtitles

LIVING WITH HEART The value of people with special needs Our Volodia was not like other children. He began to walk late - at 2-years-old. Halyna Andruschyshyn (Volodia’s sister) And he began to speak even later - at 9-years-old. So at 9, he went to school. For him it was more like visiting school, not like studying. It took him 3 years to learn what other children learned in a year. Every three years he had different classmates. He spent three years with one teacher and one set of classmates, then his classmates moved on, to the fourth or fifth grade. You could say that he spent nine years in one grade under one teacher - Roma Volodymrivna. Roma Volodymyrivna Morynets (Volodia’s teacher) This boy had special needs, but for me he was like a son. He did everything I told him. He studied at home but always asked me to come to school for two or three hours. He liked my classes very much. If only you saw how well he wrote! Even children without special needs didn't write the way he did. He could count, could tell stories, especially about singers. I remember every word he said. Volodia will correct me if I am wrong, but I think his favorite singer was Ani Lorak. She was everything to him. I would come to school and he would tell me, “Roma Volodymyrivna, this is the song I listened to.” He did not let any other teacher close to him. I was everything to him. No matter what assignment I gave him he always did it at home. He could read and did it quite well. Maybe his articulation was not very clear, he couldn’t pronounce all letters, but his reading was perfect. He loved school. He loved his parents very much. He could remember that he had lost his father, who had been killed by a horse. His mother was rose them alone. One of her sons, Volodia’s elder brother, drowned. He also remembered him. He talked even more about his sister Halynka. She was like a second mother for him. He was always waiting when she would come home from abroad (Don’t cry Volodia!) and would bring him something or would comfort him with a kind word. He was a very good child. He liked tidying up very much. When he was a child, toys didn’t exist for him. He was indifferent to them. He liked to look at photographs. I don’t remember when it started, but since he was a small child he would take photo albums, sit on the sofa, and could look through them again and again. This is our Volodia right after he was born. Here is our mother, father and Volodia. And this is our neighbor Svitlana. She liked to watch him very much. And there he is at school with his teacher. He is standing here on this side. He painted mouths on all his schoolmates. Here is Roma Volodymyrivna, and here is our Volodia. He is fond of animals. He likes cats. We had a dog, Jack, such a big German shepherd. Jack was his best friend, his very best friend. When Volodia was small and there was a lot of snow Jack would pull his sleigh. Children bullied Volodia a lot, and called him names, since he was disabled. But Jack was always at his side. And whenever somebody wanted to hurt Volodia, he would order the dog, “Get’them!”. This is how Jack protected him. He was his best friend. Our parents loved Volodia very much. He was a gift for them, a surprise. Our mother was already 46 when he was born. Zenia Kushpeta (founder of the Emmaus Centre) Volodia has been through a lot of hardship. First his father died, then his mother. When his mother died, his sister was abroad, so he stayed with his brother. But his brother, unfortunately, was an alcoholic, and treated Volodia very poorly. Volodia’s life was terrible, absolutely unbearable – he kept running away from home. When Halyna came from abroad and heard how bad it was, she thought that maybe it would be better for him to go to an institution – the institution for children and young people with mental disabilities. You can imagine how hard life is for those who live there. He stayed there for several years. When the Emmaus House started to operate at the Collegium of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Christina and I visited several institutions. And that’s how we met Volodia. Christina invited him to move to Lviv and live together with assistants and students in the Collegium’s community. It is so nice that Volodia came to us. Volodia Andruschyshyn (lives in the Emmaus House) My name is Volodia. I am 25. I live in the Emmaus House. I heard about the Emmaus House from friends with special needs by chance. After I had left my brother, I lived in the institution for four years, unfortunately. Then I suddenly heard about this house from Zenia and Christina. I came here, and that was the beginning of my fabulous and wonderful life and my friendship with assistants. I am loved and respected. I am independent. I can do many things. This is the collegium of the Ukrainian Catholic University – a residence place for students and teachers and the home of our Emmaus House. It’s wonderful to be here, because sharing life with students is very good for people with special needs - for our core members. Oksana Feduniv (leader of the Emmaus House) They see young people, their enthusiasm, their joy, and all this engulfs them, and they start to love. Our core members live through their hearts, more so than through reason. They are the way they are, they open up to everyone, whether friend or stranger. They are very sincere and it is very nice to have them here. Students see us, visit us, they form relationships with us. Relationships with students also help us when we're in the city center. We invite students for a cup of coffee, or to go places together. And it brings us closer. The students get to know our core members better this way. Students also visit us in the evening. We have celebrations together with other people in the collegium and at the university. During these informal, quiet moments you start to understand our core members more deeply. Christina Angles d’Auriac (director of the Emmaus Centre) This community implements the vision of the Bishop Borys, the former rector of the university, and its current president. For him our friends with special needs are very important. He says over and over that they are the teachers in relationships. And indeed, relationships are the most important thing for them. They yearn to be accepted, to be loved. Isn’t it the thing every person longs for in the depths of their heart? Our core members don't care whether a person is considered important or not. Now Volodia goes to a workshop and makes icons. He likes that very much. I go to the workshop. I work with wood. I polish boards. The assistants paint icons. I finish them. I singe, stick them to the wood or cover with lacquer. Yuriy Shatruk (employee of the workshop “Orione Constellation” at the parish of the Orionists Fathers) Volodia is a good boy. He can embroider well. He’s started to embroider recently, just a month ago. He makes icons. For example, in France people like Volodia often have regular jobs. They work, for instance, in cafes or canteens, etc. Marichka Muzyka (assistant of the Emmaus House) Volodia’s favourite game is called Uno. At first he was reluctant to start, being generally indifferent to table games, but he is fond of this one. His other hobby is to watch a soap opera named Roksolana. Volodia was the first to start watching it, then Liuda joined him, and even Vira said that she has also started to watch this film. It became a tradition to watch Roksolana every day. Volodia remembers the names of all sultans, which I can’t even pronounce. Mahidevran Sultan, Haseki Hurrem Sultan, Hatice Sultan, Sultan Suleyman, Daye Hatun, Valide Sultan, Nigar Kalfa and Ibrahim Pasa. Volodia Stanchyshyn (Volodia’s former assistant) It's obvious that everyone has something important to give society, every person changes it. They touch the world around them, and change that world, even if we don’t notice it. It is impossible to overestimate the life of a disabled person – because the importance of life, you can't overestimate that. A person with a disability also changes a lot, something we do not understand, something we might not see. Men, who have returned from the war in the East of Ukraine, change our country, they help us to be independent. People who are born with special need change their family, the house in which they live, the yard where they walk, the school or kindergarten where they go, change people around them. They transform these people, showing them new values. Values are the most important things for the society – something that really changes the country and the whole world. And changing values starts with society's attitude toward the disabled, because the love and acceptance of a person with a disability leads to love and acceptance of everyone. And each of us long for love and acceptance. Everybody wants to be loved and accepted. This is the basic thing a person cannot live without. People with disabilities also have this need and demonstrate it. How to accept? How to love? How to accept when it is hard, when it is not easy, when there are difficulties? How to love when it is hard? How to learn this? On the other hand, people with disabilities give us love and acceptance, absolute love and acceptance, which we come across very seldom in society where there is money, business, where you have to survive and win your place under the sun. We come to the community with disabled people, they look at us and simply love us. Not because we are the president of Ukraine, not because we are rich, but simply because we’ve come. If our basic need of being accepted is satisfied, we can do more and change society. In this way every person with a disability changes not only themselves but the world around them. I would like to add that our friends with an intellectual disability show us other perspectives. It is not important for them to be famous or to earn a lot of money, to have prestige or a career. What matters for them are relationships, to be accepted and loved. They teach us to live in the present moment. Here and now. For me, to some extent our friends with a disability show the way Jesus lived in Nazareth. He was not famous, but He knew that the most important thing was simply to be present: to be with other people, to be with God, and to accept all the gifts of the present moment. When we meet our friends in heaven, we will be very surprised, because we will see for the first time their true selves – their essence. Technical support with English subtitles: Yuliya Babiy; Hanna Kosiv; Sean T. M. Stiennon; Frances Goffinet; Svitlana Urbanska