USAID helps caregivers of disabled children to become socially protected

The USAID "Good Governance Initiative Fund" program supported the idea of Public Fund "Raduga" of Kostanay on the development of legislative initiatives to define the legal status of guardians of disabled children over the age of 18 as beneficiaries for the care of disabled children.

According to the Ministry of health and social development of Kazakhstan, 627,000 people with disabilities are in Kazakhstan, 64,930 of them are children under 18 years of age. The rest, which are adults, also require constant care. Permanent care for such disabled people falls on the shoulders of their guardians; usually mothers. In Kazakhstan, there are special boarding schools for such people, but they can not accommodate all patients. It should be noted that the maintenance of one disabled person in a boarding school costs the state more than 60 000 tenge per month.

Within the framework of the project "for those who are always close", a lot of work was put into implementation of a set of measures to analyze the problems and legal acts in this area. As well as to develop recommendations for determining the legal status of guardians of persons with disabilities from childhood over 18 years as recipients of benefits for the care of specific recommendations were developed to amend legal acts, the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan "on pensions in the Republic of Kazakhstan", "on state social benefits for disability, loss of breadwinner and age in the Republic of Kazakhstan", "on social protection of persons with disabilities in the Republic of Kazakhstan", "on housing relations", "on the Republican budget for 2016-2018", the Labor code of the Republic of Kazakhstan and other regulations, taking into account the analysis of the situation and legislation made within the project.

Elena Klimova, a guardian of Egor, a disabled person since childhood: “When a family has such an unusual child, there is no opportunity to work, since these children need help around the clock. Of course, I, as a mother of a disabled child since childhood, would very much like to see such guardians have defined legal status. This status would help many carers whose children are already 18 to receive benefits. I, as an active participant of the project "for those who are always near", I am grateful to Public Fund " Raduga" for their legislative initiatives".

The result of the project is the submission of all recommendations to the Ministry of health and social development of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the deputies of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan to change the legal acts.