Dom Druzei is always looking for people able to offer themselves as interns. If you are interested, contact the Moscow office.

Here is Claire Jewkes' account of her time as an intern there.

Claire's internship, October 2006 - July 2007

In October 2006, Claire Jewkes joined FHM as an intern on a voluntary basis and worked alongside the FHM staff Sergei Grushko and Mark O’Neill doing additional translation work and organizing the FHM Russian and English libraries.  Claire has also started working with two organisations that FHM has funded in the past - Big Change and Raduga. 

Big Change is an educational centre for orphans and children in care who were educated outside the mainstream school system in schools run by care homes.  it was established in 2002 to give children who were denied a satisfactory education as a result of poor teaching and over-crowding, an opportunity to attain the national certificate of secondary education.    Without this, they cannot enter further education and reach their potential as active members of society. 

Big Change first applied to FHM in 2003 for funding for its self-study programme, aimed at teaching students skills in self-directed research and presentation delivery.  This programme has proved very popular with the students and highly effective as a preparatory course for studying towards the certificate.  Big Change is now a successful charity and FHM no longer supports it financially.  Claire has been working on translations for their English website, which can be found at www.bigchange.ru. 

Claire also visits Raduga (The Rainbow) – a community centre for children with disabilities and their families. Valentina Dmitriyeva, herself a mother of a daughter diagnosed ‘uneducable’ but who now attends college, set up Raduga to share her experience with families in similar situations, and to offer activities and therapy .

Raduga was funded by FHM from 2003 to 2005. The centre employs ten members of staff, among them art therapists, speech therapists and psychologists and serves approximately ninety children.  Raduga continues its invaluable work and is seeking a Quaker Meeting to twin with as it is always in need of funding.

Claire hopes experience of working hands on with some of FHM’s partners will enable her to write reports which can be used in fundraising for the projects.

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