This video from BBC News features Russian writer Tamara Cheremnova who was born with Cerebral Palsy and placed in an orphanage as a child. The video explains the poor conditions that Tamara experienced at the orphanage, including a lack of shower rooms and wheelchairs. Doctors diagnosed Tamara with "mental retardation," according to the video, a diagnosis that she spent 50 years fighting. "To prove to her doctors that she didn't have learning difficulties," says the video, "Tamara started writing fairtyales. One letter at a time."
Her wrongful diagnosis was finally overturned in 2007 with the help of a famous Russian writer, Maria Arbatova. In 2017, a local woman who read Tamara's autobiography offered Tamara a home. And "at 62, she finally found a place she could call home."