#butwearealwaysathome: people with disabilities describe how they are always ‘quarantined’ at home

18.03.2020

A St Petersburg coder, Ivan Bakaidov, who has cerebral palsy and is a member of the Council on Accessibility of the Polytechnic Museum of Moscow, has launched a flashmob. Most of Ivan’s friends with disabilities spend all their time at home because so many places are inaccessible. Now, because of the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic Muscovites are asked to stay at home if possible. In posts and videos on social media people are saying that they are panicking and terrified of quarantine, and don’t know how to arrange their lives in these conditions. Ivan has called on people with disabilities to attract the attention of people who are stuck indoors for the first time and share with them the life skills they learned in their isolation.

“I call on people now to empathise with those who due to their physical disabilities cannot leave their homes. I would like you to organise services that people need most urgently (such as food deliveries, or free access to streamed cinema showings for people with disabilities. Now is the time when we can improve our situation” said Ivan on his Facebook page.

“A person in a wheelchair is used to staying at home and for weeks and months, and in some cases, years, they don’t go out but just look out of the window. …Many of the early years of my life after I became disabled were like that….Probably, for people without disabilities, who are always rushing somewhere, quarantine will offer them the wonderful possibility of spending time with their families. And they will experience what it is like to stay indoors when they would really like to be outside, but cannot be”, wrote Aislu Asan. 

“For me and many people with neuromuscular disease, the period from October to May is mostly spent inside the four walls of our apartments. It’s cold outside, your hands are frozen, making it impossible to steer your wheelchair. So, if you want to buy something going to your usual shop is not an option. Then you can use on-line shopping.” said Rutkovsky. He most often uses Ozone requesting that the goods be left at the door, or sometimes he uses Beru, Goods.ru or Wildberries.

The flashmob was supported by the Director of the Adler Rehabilitation Centre, Tatyana Vasinyuk-Arekhovskaya. “Knowing what it is like when you can’t go out, even when you want to, that is one situation. It’s another when you want to, but the world is closed to you because you can’t access it. Now life has become complicated for people who lead a normal life, but will they be able to think about anything other than the difficulties they face themselves” she said on her page.

To join the action write a post to hashtag #амывсегдадома