Volgodonsk: mothers of blind children demand to open a special kindergarten group

Mothers of visually impaired children of Volgodonsk and Zimovnikov District have appealed to the Governor of the Rostov Region Vasily Golubev with a request to open a special group in the kindergarten for their children. However, the education department of Volgodonsk said that there are not enough such children in the city and offered the women to open a family-based preschool group.

"The need to set up a special kindergarten group in Volgodonsk for visually disabled children is caused by the fact that we have to take care of them, have no chance to work, and have to live on a small state allowance," Karina Mirzoeva, mother of a blind boy named Adil, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"The situation is aggravated by the fact that schools for such children are only in Novocherkassk; and they assume inclusive education. However, giving a child away to a boarding school for a month, sometimes even for more, while he or she has seen only parents for seven years, is unreal. If there is no special group in kindergarten, our children will not communicate with peers and feel members of the society. Besides, experts say that children who are not attending a kindergarten have poorly developed motor skills and, therefore, their hands are not prepared to learn the Braille, and they lose a year of time because of this," said Mirzoeva.

Opening of groups for blind or visually impaired children is possible at the request of the city psychological, medical and pedagogical commission, if the number of children for such group is at least six under the age of three, and at least ten – at the age of over 3, Anna Cherkashina, a specialist of the Department for Education of Volgodonsk, answered to the request of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

However, there are not enough such children in Volgodonsk to form a kindergarten group. Thus, according to the Children's City Hospital, the city has registered two children aged under 3, and three kids aged from 3 to 7. In order not to leave these visually impaired preschool children without care and social adaptation, the Department provides them with specialized, correctional and development help rendered by employees of the city psychological, medical and educational commission.

In 2008-2010, in Volgodonsk, out of 169 children born with a profound degree of prematurity, only five have vision failure – the so-called "premature retinopathy", which makes 2.9 percent of the total number of children, says a written reply of the Ministry of Public Health of the Rostov Region to the request of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.