Vanessa Ribeiro, award-winning documentary photographer, author of the hit ‘Meu Munda Não Tão Particular’, activist and researcher based in Belém, Pará State, Brazil, mother of Luca, 8 years old, and diagnosed for 6 years with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

- When the mother can't stay, who will stay with him?

• I didn't want to have to fight so much!
• - At the beginning of his treatment, I was too self-denying.
• - I need to be well, so I can be well enough to take care of him.

These are routine phrases shared with Vanessa throughout the interviews conducted by the photographer that are part of the project ‘Mães no Espectro’. They are confessions and concerns common in the daily portraits of these women and mothers. In this post, represented by Vanessa, Núbia, Vívian, Suzanny, Marília, Priscila. The importance of the project 'Mothers on the Spectrum' is to offer a perspective focused on mothers who are consumed with caring for their children and often without family support (few fathers are present) and psychological support, with difficulty in accessing diagnosis, therapies and reduced working hours to care for their children, health insurance denials, centers/clinics generally located in capitals and far from the suburbs. “It is important that civil society and the State see these atypical families as a whole, not only looking at a person with a disability, but also at the caregiver who is overwhelmed (emotionally and financially).” Vanessa Ribeiro.

For more details, contact Vanessa Ribeiro - vanessarcr@gmail.com