Avik

About 2500 children with Down syndrome are born every year in Russia. According to the statistics, 8 of 10 parents give up for adoption at birth.

When Avenir — or Avik, as gently is he called in the bosom of family, — was born, he became Larisa’s sixth child. She found out about the diagnosis during pregnancy and had no doubt about having a son. Soon after Avik’s birth his father left home.

Two years later, together with other parents who have kids with disabilities, Larisa set up a nonprofit organization “Dorogoju Dobra” [By Means Of Good], a unique space in Kirov. They unite and support other families, engage medical professionals and volunteers in working with children with different health issues. Larisa is a volunteer herself, just as her two daughters, Avik’s elder sisters. Since then, the organization works for implementing inclusion and gets out a simple message: everyone’s different — everyone’s equal.

Avik has no unnamed toys because each of them refers to one of his classmates. When he comes back from school, he continues communicating with them in his own way. Avik doesn’t have enough verbal skills, so he is not able to speak properly at his age. Mostly he uses separate words, sounds, body language, and so on. Besides that, very important tools, which help Avik and other people with speech disorders to socialize, are augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices.

Nevertheless, Avik is a very gifted, attentive, sensitive and joyful child. He is not isolated from society, unlike most disabled people all around our country.

Larisa often smiles and repeats: “Since he was born, I’m having a rest. Avik is perfect”.