The Gallery; A portrait of expanding horizons

So, Tara's Gallery has pushed me out of my comfort zone again. This week's prompt was 'a portrait'. Tricky, that one, when you've promised your husband not to put your family's faces on the internet. However, here is Boy #2 - face obscured, as ever - last weekend at an open day we took him to at the Centre For Curative Pedagogics in Moscow.

If you're anything like me, you'll be wondering what on earth that means. Centre For Curative Peda- what?

The CCP is an amazing place. A bit of background; Russia is not a nation or society that is forgiving of those who are disabled in any way. If your child is born anything other than 'normal', you have to prepare yourself - and them - for a lifetime of fighting both to be seen as an individual rather than as a second class citizen, and to receive any help at all (financial or otherwise) in achieving that. This is why the recent success of Russia's athletes at the Paralympics was so very important; it finally gave the man on the street a reason to look at people in this situation as more than beggars to be handed small notes on the metro, or as people who deserve more out of life than to be put into an institution and forgotten about.

The CCP was one of the first places in Russia to recognise the rights of both mentally and physically disabled children to receive a proper education and to do something about helping them to experience that. Since it's set-up 20 years ago approximately 10,000 children (and crucially, their families) have passed through it's systems, some of them going on to mainstream education, some of them not, but all of them benefiting from the expertise of a group of teachers and supporting staff who are totally dedicated to their work.

So on Saturday we took our sons to an open day there, where they watched a show put on by some of the pupils, were given a tour of the facility, and - as you can see from the photograph - took part in the sort of workshops that the children who attend there benefit from. Boy #2 is building a little light in the shape of a house.

It was certainly a change from the comfortably insulated bubble of expat life where they usually pass their weekends. And we're going to go back; I think that it may even help us to meet the need I posted about a couple of years ago in helping the Boys understand just how fortunate they are...