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 - [email protected].

Web address: http://www.ut.ee/grant/List1.htm#Grants

Return to Index for ASI Bulletin English Translation excerpts
Visit the Index for ASI Bulletin Russian-language (Includes complete table of contents for each issue)

Available from the CCSI Home Page at: http://www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/