Center for Civil Society International ([email protected])
Mon, 31 Mar 1997 15:09:53 -0800 (PST)
CCSI presents excerpts from the Agency for Social Information (ASI) e-mail
information bulletin. Translated from Russian by CCSI volunteer Tom
Sorenson, J.D., Ph.D., Edmonds, Washington, USA. For more information on
how to receive ASI's bulletin regularly, contact:
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AGENTSTVO SOTSIALNOI INFORMATSII
Kutuzovskyi pr. 22 pod. 14a,
Moscow, 121151
Tel./fax: (095) 249-3989
E-mail: [email protected]
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N 11 (120)
14-20 March, 1997
In this issue:
I. Foreigners Working in Moscow Help Russian Children
II. The "Thanksgiving" Foundation Assists Those in Need
Materially and Morally
III. Will A New Handbook on Noncommercial Organizations Be Published
in St. Petersburg?
IV. "The Ethics of Charity" for Noncommercial Organizations in
Nizhnii Novgorod
V. Tartu University, with Support from the Open Estonia Foundation Has
Opened a New Web site With Information On Grant Making Organizations
I
Foreigners Working in Moscow Help Russian Children
On March 17 at the Mirage Club there was a charity concert, the idea for
which came from the charitable organization Action for Russia's Children
["ARC"].
More than one hundred volunteers are members of ARC. They provide aid to
orphans and children with disabilities, victims of domestic violence, and
homeless and neglected children voluntarily and without pay. For the most
part the people working at ARC are foreign women of various nationalities
currently living in Moscow. They are the wives of businessmen and
diplomats working in Russia, women entrepreneurs, housewives, and
representatives of various professions. ARC provides assistance both
directly to those in need and through Russian noncommercial organizations
that work with children.
Tickets to the charity concert were not cheap--$50.00 each. Nonetheless
350 people were found who wanted them. Most of the foreigners who
gathered at the Mirage Club were people for whom such activities are
commonplace at home.
Emily Glentworth [English spelling uncertain. Trans.], ARC's societal
relations director, told the audience how the money collected from the
sale of tickets will be distributed. Two hundred homeless adults and
children will receive free meals three times a week for three months, and
three thousand older Muscovites will be fed at charitable cafeterias.
Funds from the concert will also go to support the work of two hot lines
for women victims of violence and will help support an information and
consultation center on AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Some of
it will go to a nongovernmental shelter for homeless children and orphans
and toward the preparation of Braille textbooks for the Moscow School for
the Blind.
The Mirage Club made the facilities for the concert available free of
charge, and the well known jazz artist Tim Strong sang the entire evening
without pay to help Russia's children.
Telephone number for ARC: 945-2493
II
The "Thanksgiving" Foundation Assists
Those in Need Materially and Morally
The social, charitable foundation "Thanksgiving" ["Blagodarenie"] began
its activities in 1994, when the pensioner and former eminent atomic
engineer Oleg Vasil'ievich Ostrovskii and the engineer and technician Vera
Dmitrievna Lemeseva gathered a group of colleagues and acquaintances and
registered the social organization in the city of Krasnogorsk. Its sole
purpose is to provide assistance to people in need out of a sense of
charity and compassion.
It all began with the creation of an Orthodox community at the Church of
the Shroud of the Blessed Mother of God in Brattsevo (Severnoe Tushino).
The community was to distribute humanitarian assistance to the poor. It
was just then that Vera and Oleg Vasil'ievich encountered human grief and
poverty and understood that they were called to provide assistance to
those in need.
The staff of the foundation consists of only two people, who carry out all
of the work: they investigate the condition and needs of those who ask
for help; look for those in need who do not ask for help; seek resources;
apply for assistance to entrepreneurs, directors of enterprises, banks,
and private individuals; acquire donations of clothes and shoes; obtain
and distribute produce, materials, and equipment; and fill out all of the
necessary paperwork.
Over the course of its existence, the foundation has asked for help from
over 400 organizations. Unfortunately, the number of those who display
charity toward those who suffer is not great. Nonetheless, the foundation
continually operates programs of assistance for orphans and children from
large families or families without significant means of support, to people
who find themselves in critical situations, and to Orthodox churches and
monasteries.
Every program seeks to provide constant, personal assistance to a specific
individual. A charitable person who responds to a request from the
foundation can be confident that everything he [or she] gives will go for
the specified purpose and will provide maximum benefit to those in need.
Thus, the firm TIGI Marketing provides generous assistance for the
restoration of churches and monasteries and participates in the financing
of charitable programs for orphans and the poor. The Krasnogorsk Gas
Industry Trust finds the means and opportunity to participate in the work
of the foundation "Children," and the Krasnogorsk branch of the Social
Insurance Fund of the Independent Russian Miners' Union found an
opportunity to participate in helping orphans and large families.
More than one thousand people have received assistance so far. But people
who are lost, who are worn out by poverty and cares, need more than
material support. They need a friendly ear. After all, people need
someone to share their sorrows with. They come to Thanksgiving, where
people listen to them attentively. "These talks are also part of our
work. Not only to distribute things, not only to give advice, but to see
to it that a person does not despair but finds faith in himself and, in
the end, can help not only himself but those around him," says Vera
Lemeseva, the director of the foundation.
Ms. Lemeseva says that it is greatly to be desired that he foundation
broaden its work. For that, it is necessary first of all that people who
wish to support orphans, children from poor families, the seriously ill,
and people suffering from cancer and other diseases respond to support
those who turn to the foundation but who cannot always receive the
necessary help due to a shortage of resources.
Telephone number: 564-1449 (Vera Lemeseva & Oleg Ostrovskii)
III
Will A New Handbook on Noncommercial Organizations
Be Published in St. Petersburg?
The International Women's Club of St. Petersburg is working on the
publication of an English language handbook on nongovernmental
organizations active in St. Petersburg. It will be distributed to foreign
firms having the desire and ability to assist noncommercial
organizations. Project manager Nancy Gleiser says that "the handbook is
scheduled to come out at the beginning of summer. It is needed for firms
and foundations to provide tailored, which is to say more effective,
support."
The compilers of the handbook hope that organizations in St. Petersburg
will be interested in it. However, representatives of the noncommercial
sector themselves doubt that the plan will be realized. The organizers
themselves admit that so far they have gathered information on only 20
organizations and that they know nothing about most of the organizations
in the city.
Organizations that wish to provide information on themselves may do so by
calling (812) 325-2262.
IV
"The Ethics of Charity" for Noncommercial
Organizations in Nizhnii Novgorod
A seminar dealing with various issues of ethics in the activity of NCOs
took place on March 17-19 at the House of Scholars. It was put on by the
British charitable foundation CAF with support from the foundation "Know
How," and the government of Great Britain. It was organized in Nizhnii
Novgorod by the association "Service." The seminar was most helpful for
organizations that assist socially vulnerable segments of society.
"In my normal mental development nearly everyone in stores and on the
street has doubted me," says Irina Zarubina of the creative cooperative
association "Kamerata," [who is blind]. "And I have two higher degrees
and no one can suspect me of being retarded." Irina, despite her
blindness, gets around the city without a guide. She wants people to deal
with her directly and not to deal with a guide "translator," as always
used to be the case with her.
Many people have encountered various forms of discrimination of the most
varied sorts. It is a secret to no one that in an election between two
equally qualified candidates the preference goes to the man. Nearly all
of us feels an inner distrust of people of "nationalities of the
Caucasus." Representatives of sexual minorities are considered potential
criminals and outcasts from society, and attitudes toward people with AIDS
are reminiscent of the persecution of lepers.
Most NCOs provide services that cannot be had from other organizations.
The principles of social justice and equal opportunity for all must be
paramount in their activities. [At the seminar] leaders of noncommercial
organizations learned the ability to bring these values to broad segments
of society under the direction of British teachers Jo-Anne Frazier and
Mark Harrison.
The next seminar will take place in October, 1997.
V
Tartu University, with Support from the Open
Estonia Foundation, Has Opened a New Web site
With Information On Grant Making Organizations
This site contains information on nearly 200 foundations that support
projects in Estonia as well as in the other countries of the former Soviet
Union and Central and Eastern Europe.
Additional information is available from Andrus Tasa of the grants
department of Tartu University - department of Tartu University - [email protected].
Web address: http://www.ut.ee/grant/List1.htm#Grants
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| CCSI presents excerpts from the ASI Bulletin. The |
| ASI Bulletin is a publication of the Agency for Social |
| Information (ASI) in Moscow. Originally published in |
| Russian, selected stories are translated and posted to |
| the CCSI listserv "CivilSoc." English and Russian |
| archives are available on the CCSI Web site at: |
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