Over 200 healthy children and children with disabilities from Bashkortostan as well as the Volga Region participated in the Breaking the Barriers second interregional children’s arts festival, which took place in Ufa on November 14 under the slogan “Friendship begins here!”
Children’s arts celebration was organized by Gazprom Transgaz Ufa together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Bashkortostan and the Kultprosvet communications agency. The event demonstrated how friendship helped to bring people together, how kindness pushed the boundaries of human limitations in any area of activity.
For several months the festival organizing committee had been receiving the applications from young performers eager to take part in the contest. The expert jury which consisted of cultural professionals, including a popular singer and composer Dmitry Malikov, selected 15 bright and ingenious performances in different nominations: vocal, choreography, instrumental performance and magic.
The children got a chance to show their talents at the Congress Hall stage. Dasha Mordvinova suffering from bronchial asthma performed melodious Russian folk tunes, visually impaired Oleg Volodin appeared in the character of a French singer Joe Dassin, Ayrat Fairushin with musculoskeletal disorders recited a rap of his own composition, children from a gesture singing studio of the Bakaly District put on an interesting show.
The Breaking the Barriers festival was organized in Ufa for the second time, and it is not the only event implemented by Gazprom Transgaz Ufa jointly with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of Bashkortostan. Breaking the Barriers is a project with a same-name website, under which campaigns for collecting and donating computer equipment to people with disabilities are set up as well as arts contests for children with health restrictions, rehabilitation and sports events.
“We’ve been working together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare of the Republic since 2012. Our joint programs are aimed at supporting low-income and multi-child families, gifted children, including those with disabilities. Rafting down the Agidel River, ferry sailing, rehabilitation treatment are carried out within the scope of cooperation,” says Shamil Sharipov, Director General of Gazprom Transgaz Ufa. “Such cultural events have a great impact on the children, they start feeling better, their self-esteem increases. They become equal members of society, and this can’t but please us. The barriers are being broken, and this means we’re on the right track.”
