UNhcr_news_LOGO.gif (1950 bytes)

 UNHCR
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Film in Defense of Refugees Rights

The implementation of the project called "Refugees Rights Film Monitoring Action" started in June. It is a follow-up activity to the UNHCR programme "Film in Defense of Refugees Rights" which was a part of the Fourth International Human Rights Film Festival held in Moscow last year. The refugee monitoring action will travel trough three regions: Novgorod, Krasnodar and Saratov. It will include demonstration of films on refugees and migrants issues, round table discussions, briefings for media and polls on attitudes of the local population towards refugees and migrants. UNHCR’s implementing partners will participate in the event.
Seminar on acute migration issues was held in the Republic of Chuvashia

The representatives of 14 regions took part in the seminar.


A seminar dedicated to the problems of refugees and migrants in Russia. was organized in Cheboksary, the capital of the Republic of Chuvashia, during the first week of June. The seminar organized jointly by UNHCR and the Chuvash government was attended by representatives of relevant federal and local governmental bodies from 14 regions including the Republics of Bashkortastan, Komi, Tatarstan, Mariy El, Mordovia, Udmurtia, Chuvashia, Altai territory as well as Nizhny Novgorod, Kirov, Ulyanovsk, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd regions. The discussions focused on legal aspects, the status determination procedures of refugees and forced migrants in particular, and UNHCR’s assistance programmes to refugees and migrants in various regions. Participants exchanged opinions on the implementation of the Plan of Action adopted by the CIS Conference on Migrants and Refugees held in 1996.
  For your UN file

UN: FIGURES AND FACTS

  • UN Secretariat has a zero-growth budget of $2.5 billion for 1998-99 – $1.25 billion a year. This is down $100 million from 1994-95, the result of efficiency gains and the elimination of nearly 1,000 jobs.

  • UN Secretariat staff has been cut by 25 per cent to about 8,700 from a high of more than 12,000 in 1984-85, and streamlining continues. Tough new standards have been set for staff performance.

  • Since 1948, there have been 49 United Nations peacekeeping operations. There are currently 14 under way Thirty-six peacekeeping operations were created by the Security Council in the years between 1988 and September 1998.

  • Since 1948, 118 nations have contributed personnel at various times; 77 are currently providing peacekeepers. As of 31 August 1998, the top contributors of troops to current missions were: Poland (1,034 soldiers); Bangladesh (886); Austria (792): Ghana (788); Finland (777): Ireland (727): and Norway (727).

  

 

 UNICEF
United Nations Children's Fund
Gala Concert for Homeless Children

A charity gala concert, Diamonds of World Ballet for Homeless Children, was held in the Kremlin Palace in Moscow under the patronage of UNICEF.

Gala concert partisipants.Participating were soloists from the best ballet companies of Russia, Britain, Italy, France, the United States, Denmark and Germany. Despite the difficulties, none of those invited to the charity concert failed to turn up, unlike the rock group Kiss, which at the time canceled their tour. For the first time in nine years, Irek Mukhamedov, a former soloist of the Bolshoi and now leading artist at the Royal ballet in London, came to Moscow. He danced a dazzling Tarantella with Yelena Knyaz-kova, leading artist of the Russky balet, or Russian Ballet company.

Konstantin Uralsky, director of the Russian School of Ballet in the United States, put on a special one-act ballet Ulitsa, or Street, music by Rach-maninov. "This is a ballet about you and I," the producer said. "We have all had our childhood, and all have our future. Each of us is responsible for the childhood of our future," he said. It was this feeling of duty to our children that made the gala concert possible.

The UNICEF representative in Russia, Gianni Murzi, said at a press conference that adults especially are responsible towards children deprived of their home and family, or children with special requirements or learning difficulties. Several successful UNICEF programs are devoted to work with such children throughout Russia.

 

 UNICEF
United Nations Children's Fund
Police Academy

No Canadian offender or even policeman is likely to have seen as much as a group of Russian law enforcement officials has managed to see in Montreal over a period of just ten days. It was a part of the UNICEF programme "Police and the Youth" that the heads of departments for young offenders from seven Russian regions visited a juvenile court, a commission for protecting the rights of children, a centre for the rehabilitation of young offenders, police stations and special training sessions.

The aim of the programme was fulfilled. In other words, Russian law enforcement officers became familiar with the Canadian method of campaigning against and preventing juvenile crimes in general and, importantly, gained a clear and detailed insight into the programme of partnership and how the police work with other government and public organizations concerned with young people. The challenge is simple – to combine forces and work together.

The programme participants took theoretical and practical classes to learn precisely how to form such a structure, build relations, for example, with non-governmental funds or school teachers and then to ensure the smooth operation of the whole system. The lessons were conducted by lecturers from the college of College de la Maisonneuvve which trains future Canadian policemen. As a result, each Russian participant devised a concrete, individual plan of action with relevance to the most acute problems in his region. The problems include drug abuse, adapting to the school regime again after the long summer holidays, when customary relations are broken and crime often increases, and many others.

The UNICEF programme participants looked at old issues with fresh eyes and drafted a plan of action which complied with the expertise newly acquired in Canada. Today, all those who attended the courses in Montreal have started to carry out those plans in their own territory. In the autumn, the Canadian instructors will visit their Russian colleagues to see how they are getting on and see and discuss the first results.

Go to page: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7