Promotion of tolerance towards Refugees in Russia

Gallup Media has recently published results of its research on advertising of humanitarian events and issues by local media in Russia. The assessment carried out by Gallup was based on the amount of funds spent for advertising purposes of charitable/humanitarian events in 2002. It turned out that foreign organisations and companies provided most of these advertisements. According to the results of the research UNHCR took the first place among them without paying anything for airtime, frequency or newspaper space.

To raise public awareness and promote acceptance of asylum-seekers in the Russian Federation, UNHCR co-ordinates a number of programmes at the local, regional and national levels. For members of the host community, the most important issue is that they understand the reasons why asylum-seekers have settled among them and that they are not perceived as economic migrants.

In order to promote tolerance for asylum-seekers at the local level, UNHCR implementing partner Equilibre-Solidarity organises musical, theatrical and artistic events several times throughout the year. The annual Summer Music Festival Zelenogradskii in the temporaly accomodation center, for example, provides a space for people from Russian and asylum-seeker communities to learn about each other’s musical traditions and national costumes while sampling ethnic cuisine.

A group of psychologists working with UNHCR implementing partner Gratis organises a number of awareness-raising events to promote intercultural tolerance between asylum-seekers and Russian youth. A similar project, "A Lesson of Tolerance", is co-ordinated by UNHCR in collaboration with the newspaper "1st September" and aims to raise awareness of refugee-related issues among school children in Russian schools nation-wide.

The Public Information Unit of UNHCR organises public awareness campaigns in the form of TV spots, radio programmes, newspaper articles and special events to educate the public at large about the distinction between asylum-seekers and economic migrants, to combat public displays of xenophobia by neo-Nazi and far-right Russian nationalist youth gangs towards asylum-seekers.

The most far-reaching project is a weekly radio programme "New Place of Residence" aired on "Radio of Russia", with an audience of several million people.

A two-months poster campaign "Einstein was a refugee" in the Moscow city subway was over in May.

In another awareness campaign, UNHCR, in collaboration with the Alliance of Regional Media Managers organises workshops for journalists of regional and Moscow newspapers. On 13–14 May 2003 a workshop for journalists working for Moscow and Moscow region newspapers was held at the Moscow National Press club.

On 5 May UNHCR participated in a charitable concert organised by its partner the Moscow Peace Fund, a local NGO, and supported by the Moscow government in order to raise funds for summer recreation activities and treatment of refugee and IDP children currently residing in Moscow and the Moscow region. The famous and very popular musicians and singers participated in the concert including the USSR People’s artist Ludmilla Zykina (she is the Chairperson of the Moscow Peace Fund), the USSR People’s artist Iosif Kobzon, Honoured artist of Russia Nikolai Baskov and others. Thanks to the event over 60 refugee/IDP children will be able to spend summer vacation in a sanatorium in the country near Moscow in June and July.

UNHCR held several events in Moscow and in the North Caucasus dedicated to the World Refugee Day (WRD) marked on 20 June. This year the motto of the Day was "Refugee Youth: Building the Future". In Moscow, UNHCR and its partners organised a fair of items made by refugees and asylum-seekers, a concert with participation of refugees and Russian musicians, a telephone "hot line" on the problems on refugees jointly with the Office of the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation, interviews to local media. The UNHCR mirror web-site (www.unhcr.ru) in Russian was launched on the eve of the WRD.

A Good Investment In...Soap Bubbles

Since 1999, UNICEF and ROSBANK, one of the largest commercial banks in Russia, have been carrying out the New Day programme. The programme provides support for social projects oriented toward helping, through the arts and sport, children with disabilities, orphans, and adolescents with troubled backgrounds. It’s being managed by UK-based Charities Aid Foundation (Russian branch). The programme’s overall budget since it began operations has totalled around half a million US dollars. One hundred twenty-three projects have been financed with this money. These have used various kinds of art in treating disabled children, fostering problem children and teens, and solving the problems of children suffering from abuse and violence, and experiencing family difficulties.

"The programme operates in Moscow, Moscow Region, and the main Russian regions – from Krasnodar to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and Ulan-Ude", said ROSBANK official Anna Plotnikova. "This year, 45 social and charitable programmes have been funded as part of the programme, 6 in Moscow and 39 in the regions. The winners are determined by the independent experts who evaluate the projects. Galina Volchek, the artistic director of the Sovremennik Theatre, takes an active part in the expert committee’s work".

One of the projects getting a grant this year was Moscow’s Maria’s Children Art Rehabilitation Centre. The centre was established by Maria Eliseeva, who was already an artist and the mother of four lovely daughters when she began coming to Moscow’s Children’s Orphanage No. 103 on weekends, and teach art to the youngsters living there. The diagnosis for the majority of these children was hardly optimistic: "severe mental retardation". In fact, for many of them, this diagnosis did not correspond to their actual condition. Warmth, care, and attention, which these children sorely lacked, proved capable of working wonders. The children began to draw and paint, make things out of modelling clay, and – most important – came to believe in their own powers. It turned out that a great many things that had earlier seemed impossible, even in their wildest dreams, was right at their fingertips.

"Youngsters in children’s orphanages", says Maria Eliseeva, "are far from being equipped for everyday life. We’ve started inviting the kids to our place on the weekends, and then going camping in the countryside.... The kids have learned to cook and to buy bread at the bakery. Together, we’ve been enlarging the world we have to live in. All we had to do was spend time with them, and they really felt the attention they were getting, something that was missing before".

"My life was completely turned around when I met Maria", said 12-year-old Sasha Fetisov, from Children’s Orphanage No. 80. (All the children call Maria Eliseeva by her first name – with great respect and love). One of my classmates started taking her lessons first, then I started going to the studio. That was three years ago".

Maria Eliseeva didn’t stop at drawing and painting. Several years ago, she became acquainted with an American, Patch Adams, a family doctor convinced that one of the best medicines is laughter and a good disposition. He therefore invented "clown therapy", and used it to light a fire under his friends. This now means that once a year, Patch and a number of other Americans come to Russia at their own expense, put on their clown costumes, and visit children’s hospitals, homes, and hospices in Moscow and St. Petersburg, just to give their residents a smile and some joy and laughter. Maria’s Children put together their own clown outfits and joined the team; they are still with them to this day. Everyone has found a role to play. For example, Sasha Fetisov has become a juggler; he studies with a professional circus juggler who regularly comes to the studio at Maria’s request. "At first, it was baffling and scary to come out somewhere wearing a clown outfit and juggle", said Sasha. "Now, I’m not afraid any longer, but I still have a lot of training to do".

Maria’s Children travels to other orphanages and children’s homes, put on their slapstick shows, and even paint the walls – just so the places will be a bit more cheery to live in.

"We do paint pictures on the walls of the residential schools’, said Ms Eliseeva, ‘but only with their permission, of course. We paint great big butterflies, ocean waves, and fairy-tale lands. We make their world more colourful. Moreover, in the children’s homes, our girls, 14 and 15 years old, if they’re allowed to, change the babies’ diapers and help feed them. And the girls are beginning to understand that if they suddenly find themselves in a "difficult situation", they’ll have to face the question of whether to give up their own child – that if they do, their baby will lie here, just as forgotten and uncared for; and that you might not have a lot of money, but you can always raise your child yourself".

Over the last ten years, around 500 youngsters from children’s homes and residential schools have been able to call themselves "Maria’s children". Many of her first pupils have already managed to become parents themselves, but continue to come to her lessons and, in turn, to help other children open up their world.

The grant they are getting as part of the New Day programme will go to pay for their clown trips. Very soon, forty of them will travel to Vladimir to give shows in the city’s children’s homes and vocational training centers. They will perform themselves, and will teach the local youngsters how it’s possible to turn their own lives around. "We really do throw our money away", said Ms. Eliseeva. ‘We spend it all on soap bubbles!" It truly is a good investment.

Care And Attention For Every Child

In the run-up to the International Day for the Protection of Children, UNICEF, together with the all-Russian NGO Union Civil Society for Russia’s Children, have unveiled a new informational campaign – Leave No Child Out. The presentation of the campaign took place during a telebridge linking Moscow with twelve Russian regions, and a simultaneous Internet conference. In the Moscow studio, Rosemary McCreery, UNICEF Representative in the Russian Federation and Belarus, Ella Pamfilova, the Chairperson of the all-Russian NGO Union Civil Society for Russia’s Children, Head of the Human Rights Commission at the President of the Russian Federation, and members of other non-governmental organizations, were all guests of the telebridge.

The Leave No Child Out campaign is stated to last for one year. Its aim is to draw the Russian public’s attention to the problems of children and adolescents, and to raise the public at large’s level of knowledge on the rights of the child. Non-governmental organizations ought to be the leaders and initiators in this large-scale programme. Civil Society for Russia’s Children has already brought together around 500 such organizations around the country. The union is part of a regional network of NGOs from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and the CIS. The campaign is also gathering steam in these countries, following its launch in Istanbul, at which UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy was present.

Representatives from Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Arkhangelsk, Barnaul, Belgorod, Novosibirsk, and Moscow took part in discussing the all-too-real problems of protecting the rights of children. Human rights officials, representatives of NGOs and businesses, and members of the mass media all spoke on the topic.

The Care and Attention for Every Child Information Marathon was launched at this event. Its results will be announced in time for the 2004 International Day for the Protection of Children. The marathon’s goal is to exchange experiences in working for the interests of children, and to share their positive results, so that the best examples will become the property of other regions as well.

The Internet sites to exchange information are: www.pionerka.ru and www.detirossii.ru

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