Viltis

This country does so many things new. They monitor highway speed with cameras and sensors.  They recycle.  Their streets are spotless.  There is yet another shopping mall popping up on the outskirts of Vilnius despite the crize (crisis). You can send text messages to pay your parking meter. This kind of technology makes you think you're in modern Europe. You are not. Parliament tried to pass a law making homosexuality illegal.  Stereotypes about blacks and Hispanics roll-off people's tongues like they're talking about the weather. The only handicap accessible places in the country are buses that were made in Germany and are accessible by default because they were built to German standards. This is not a good country to be different in.  One can find ways to blame the Soviet occupation for every thing that is wrong here.  Maybe the older generations are still stuck in that vortex, but time is running out for excuses.  The future is going to leave this place behind.  

Enter Viltis, the organization that puts on the camp that A.P.P.L.E works through.  Their goal since 1989 has been to re-integrate people with disabilities into society.  It is slow-going.  For most of this century, people with disabilities were put into institutions, some received monthly visits from their families, most were forgotten.  When Lithuania became part of the EU, they were told to shape up.  People with disabilities are just that, people, and as part of their new-found guidelines as an EU member, Lithuania was challenged to start treating them that way.  The education question is the big one.  

For two weeks every summer, Viltis rents a camp on the Baltic Sea, buses in 50 or so volunteers, and offers two weeks of respite to the families taking care of kids with disabilities.  The volunteers work with the kids for two sessions during the day while parents relax by the sea (or lurk behind trees as to not miss anything their child may be doing).  There is also a group of teachers that the Ministry of Education sends to camp to work with the APPLE program I am a part of.  We get a very special group of students and we, the facilitators, work with them, their parents, and the teachers.  We also have camp volunteers that work with us, including Leticija, who is one of the most alive people I have ever met. I hope I have some time to tell you her story. 

 My job is to teach the teachers, but well, that's really not the fun part.  These guys are...

Meet Arnas. He is 14 and doesn't walk. He sure rides the hell out of his tricycle though and his wheelchair didn't stop him from beating me at basketball. He laughs a lot and always offers a handshake in greetings.  He wears pretty rad motorcycle gloves to protect his hands from blisters as he pushes the wheels of his chair.  He goes to a regular school and is in general education classes. He doesn't pee Monday-Friday until after 3:00.  He can't stand up to go to the toilet and no one at school will help him.

This is Greta.  She loves to dance.  She doesn't much mind if there is music playing or not. I don't know that much about her educational situation, but if she goes to a school it is not integrated.  I do know that her mom loves her very much, and accepts her for who she is. 

Erikas has seizures and doesn't talk much.  He has the most brilliantly blue eyes that match his mother's. He talks to you with them.  Leticija claimed him for her own immediately upon meeting him, and I see why.  She's right, he is special. 

Montvidas really likes to play catch.  Last year he wouldn't talk to me and had a really hard time leaving his mom even for the few hours our program ran.  This year he held my hand as often as he held hers.  We played ball every morning and once he even hid when his mom came to get him.  He's a pretty smart kid, who doesn't read as he should at his age.  He's got serious social anxiety, but I think he'll be okay.

Meet Henrikas.  He is adorable.  He is autistic.  Every morning he checks for new toys and then dismantles and rebuilds the twig houses he has built around our meeting spot. He loves to run away, but mostly just for the being caught part. 

Dovidus doesn't go to school.  His mother is a poet and works with him at home. He attends art classes at a center for people with disabilities.  He also has a tutor that comes to their home 6 or so hours a week.  This is enough by ministry standards to count as "being educated."  He refuses to learn to read, although he could.  I can't really blame him.  If no one asked me to learn until I was 16, I'd be pissed too.  Every night at the "disco" you'll find him on the balcony, microphone in hand, leading the group in Lithuanian and Russian pop songs.  In last year's APPLE performance, we were characters in the same family.  The first thing he did this year was hug me and remind me that he is my brother.  

This is Rytis.  He is very special.  I don't often work with kids who are this severely disabled, and I may really not be equipped to.  This little guy did a pretty good job this week of making me think again.  He recognizes you.  He can answer your questions with his gaze. He gets jealous when you leave him to play with someone else.  He forgave my terrible pronunciation when reading him stories.  I thank him for challenging my assumptions.

 

And this is the love of my life. You've heard about him before. He captured my heart last year by chasing me around in his wheel chair and we proceeded to set a world record for the number of times two people could sing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes in a 9 day period. Izodorius is going to be in the 3rd grade. He may be the luckiest little boy in Lithuania.

His mother is the most brilliantly stubborn woman I have ever met.  She decided he would go to a regular school with his peers and she made it happen. It didn't matter if he was the only one in their whole town.  She wasn't happy with his first grade teacher's method of "integration" which involved him sitting in the corner working on his own assignments, while the class existed without him.  So she partnered up with her older son's 2nd-4th grade teacher and they are in the process of making history.  I met them last summer when Izidorius's mom, Jurgita, brought his future teacher, Zydra, to camp with them.  Zydra stood out high above the others as smart, empathetic, and courageous.  And then she came back.  

She told us about her class-how accepting they are of Izodorius and how kids take turns to get to be the ones to help him.  She told us about challenging other teachers - those who didn't want to take him for art or PE, and how now they come to walk with him to class.  She told us about how the  administration approached her about including other special needs students in the school.  She wouldn't take any of the credit for a successful year, but it was her spirit, persistence, and compassion, along with a solid partnership with Jurgita, that made it work.  I would not want to enter in to any sort of argument with these women.  I would lose, hands down, before even getting started.  But in this case, everybody wins.  

This year's group of teachers was from a different planet than last year's. They belong at a place called Viltis, because they inspire just that.  I am hopeful they will find a place for these kids in their society.  I am hopeful that they will continue to improve their classrooms as places for all.  I am hopeful that they are the future of Lithuania.