Anna Solovei
Self-advocate, participant in the Personal Assistant project, and Chair of the Self-Advocates Council.
Until recently, simple everyday things—paying utility bills, managing her own social media page, or moving in with the person she loves—felt out of reach for Anna. Today, with the support of her personal assistant, Oksana, she independently organizes online conferences and speaks at international forums, where she advocates for the rights of persons with intellectual disability.
The personal assistance service helps people with intellectual disabilities live independently, make their own decisions, and actively participate in community life. WHO in Ukraine supported the development of the service standards in Ukraine in line with international best practices and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Mom used to say, “You need to learn to be more independent, to do everything yourself.”
Yes, it saddened me, but I understand that this is life.
Now my personal life has improved. I live with my loving boyfriend.
Even before living with my boyfriend — when I was on my own with my niece, even though she was working — I tried to support myself.
So even during hard nights and shelling, it was very difficult for me at first, I didn’t understand what was happening at all, and then I tried to pull myself together and say: “Anya, everything is okay”.
Before I had a personal assistant, things were kind of tough.
When Oksana and I talk things through, she helps me out.
Support. I think even more — it’s support, friendship, and even more inspiration.
I think the biggest chance to grow for someone with an intellectual disability — and honestly, not just them, but anyone — is having a choice.
When a person can choose what they want, what they don’t want. When someone asks them what they actually want.
This is a specially organized service for people with intellectual disabilities, so that a person could live independently in the community, so that they can manage their own desires and solve their problems.
Often with a mother… It all started when the child was small, she grew up, she is like 30-40 years old, but the mother still decides everything.
The assistant follows the person’s lead and supports what they actually want.
If a person with an intellectual disability wants to go to the cinema — we go to the cinema.
Last year I went to Brussels, participated in conferences, and told others about our organization.
In order for Anya to be more comfortable, so that she understood better what was happening, to prepare for the conference, to prepare for a meeting of the Self-Advocacy Council — she needs an assistant because she writes a lot of posts on Facebook.
And I also dream of getting a job. It’s a bit scary to get a job for now, but I think that in the autumn I will ask Oksana to go with me to find everything out and get a job.
The Story of Anna Solovey
Anna is a person with an intellectual disability, a self-advocate, and a member of the boards of the charitable organisation Dzherela and the Ukrainian nationwide NGO Coalition for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.
When Anna’s parents left Kyiv at the beginning of the full-scale war, she stayed behind on her own and began to need support. That was when Oksana, her personal assistant, came into her life. This form of support for people with disabilities is only beginning to develop in Ukraine.
WHO Ukraine contributed to the development of draft standards for personal assistance services; at present, this model is being piloted through individual initiatives. Until the service becomes part of the nationwide system, several civil society organisations, with the support of international organisations, including WHO Ukraine, are testing this approach in practice. They train personal assistants and provide ongoing support to people who use these services.
One of the key roles of a personal assistant is to help a person develop the skills they need to live independently. For example, after remaining in Kyiv without her parents, Anna needed to pay her utility bills herself, but she did not know how to do it. Step by step, Oksana showed Anna how to fill in the payment forms and pay her utility bills.
“Our main task is to help a person fulfil their wishes. In the partnership between an assistant and a person with an intellectual disability, it is always the person with an intellectual disability who makes the decisions,” Oksana explains.
In practice, a personal assistant comes to a person with an intellectual disability and helps them with everyday tasks that might otherwise be inaccessible to them, leaving them dependent on their parents or relatives — going to the shop, learning how to use a phone or laptop, or making a doctor’s appointment.
The approach provides for 14 types of support. The person independently chooses what kind of assistance they need, to what extent, and who they want to provide it.
Oksana’s support has helped Anna become independent in many aspects of everyday life. Today, she manages her own social media pages, organises online conferences, and administers the Self-Advocates’ Council’s chats on messaging platforms.
Anna has also taken part in international conferences in Belgium and Denmark. At international forums, she has shared the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities living in Ukraine during the war. In Denmark, Anna and her colleagues presented a project for a house in Bohuslav. The organisation purchased the house so that people with intellectual disabilities could live in the community with support rather than be placed in residential institutions.
Anna considers her greatest personal achievement to be moving in with her partner independently. Her next goal is to find a job — an important step towards becoming fully independent.
“For a person with an intellectual disability, the greatest opportunity for growth most often begins with the right to choose — with having the opportunity to say what they want and to have their voice heard,” notes Yuliia Klepets, Executive Director of the Coalition for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.
Anna and Oksana’s story shows that personal assistance is not about making decisions on someone else’s behalf. It is about providing the support a person needs to pursue their own wishes and aspirations.
Oksana is there to support Anna, but the decisions always remain Anna’s. Today, Anna determines for herself what she wants from life: she travels, speaks at international conferences, builds relationships, and is looking for a job.
