Maria's Story - The TRUE story of love, hope and survival and one woman’s battle to change her life

Maria lost her legs when she was five years old, falling between the train and the platform while on her way to visit her grandmother in Siberia. At 17, during a village summer festival, she was kidnapped by a group of gypsies and smuggled to Moscow. Living in squalor and unable to contact her family back home, she was forced to beg for the gypsies to survive.

As a good earner for the gypsies, she was then forced into a gypsy marriage, raped and eventually fell pregnant. Not wanting her baby to be born into that appalling environment - and with the help of a kiosk worker she had befriended - Maria finally managed to escape and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in a hospital on the outskirts of Moscow.

In 2003 Robin Barratt, a bodyguard who was working in Moscow at that time, happened to pass Maria begging in a metro station. After listening to her story, Robin and his wife Inna set up an appeal to provide a little help for her and her son.

Maria with Heather Mills

After a few weeks Heather Mills, former wife of Sir Paul McCartney, heard about the appeal and personally telephoned Robin and his wife and pledged her help and support. In 2004, while Paul McCartney was in concert in St Petersburg, Heather flew to Moscow and, in a secret meeting between Heather and Maria, a decision was made to get Maria new legs. With legs Maria could walk, find a job, change her life and finally become the mother she so desperately wants to be. The Icelandic company Össur donated some of the best artificial legs in the world and, in August 2004, a prosthetic surgeon traveled to Russia to personally make and fit the legs.

Over the past couple of years Maria has been getting used to her new legs. She walks regularly and has even been dancing! In 2007, a Norwich company promised to complete the legs by supplying a new cosmetic covering which makes prosthetics legs look more life-like. This will be completed by the end of the 2007 - once Maria’s artificial legs have been finally serviced to suit her changed limb shape.

Maria with Jamie (left), Inna and Andrei (right)

Maria with Jamie (left), Inna and Andrei (right)

Maria no longer begs. She is off the streets and has a new life; she works part-time as a child minder in her local village about 30 minutes drive from Moscow boundary and, after years of sharing a squalid apartment with a number of other families, she now rents her own two roomed apartment.

This story shows us how, with just a little time and effort, we all have the power to help change someone else’s life for the better.

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