2006 Review

Review of work in 2006

FHM would like to take this chance to thank all our supporters throughout 2006 and share with you some developments this year and some plans for the next.

All the projects we support are visited from time to time and a Visit Report is circulated to the Board. We expect regular reports from project leaders, and a final account showing how our grant has been spent. In this way we ensure that the money generously given by our supporters is used for the purposes for which FHM was established.

In 2006, we relied solely on funds from individuals and Meetings to continue FHM's work. We were forced to turn down several good projects. Please help FHM in 2007 by donating money or by asking your Meeting to support our work.

Alternatives to Violence Outreach Racism

Conscription Expenditure in 2006

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Alternatives to Violence Project

2006 has seen the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) develop even further in Russia. Before FHM was even founded, AVP trainers had been to Moscow to train facilitators. Later the Russian facilitators, with the support and involvement of FHM, went on to form the AVP Moscow Council and ran further workshops. After several years two more Russian AVP groups started holding their AVP Russia workshop participants own workshops: AVP Dzerzhinsk and AVP Lipetsk. Workshops have also been held with refugees in Chechnya and Ingushetia. More recently a new group, AVP Odessa, has started holding workshops, including workshops with prisoners in Ukraine. In 2005 a group of interested people in the three Baltic States were trained by the AVP Moscow group. One of the most effective features of AVP is that participants, having gained experience from attending the three stages of workshop (basic, advanced and training for trainers), can then go on to train more groups of facilitators and so the project has a potentially unlimited capability for growth. All these regional groups developed as a result of the first workshops held in Moscow thirteen years ago.

In 2006 the project developed even further. Previously FHM funded three separate projects: AVP Moscow, AVP Lipetsk and AVP Dzerzhinsk, but it was decided by all parties that the project would be more effective if the three regional groups merged to form an AVP Russia group which now has a part-time coordinator. AVP Russia has been operating since July 2006 and it has shown to be a more cost-effective and productive way of holding AVP workshops in Russia.

FHM has always had more than a funding relationship with AVP, and FHM staff and board members take an active role in the project’s development. A member of FHM staff, who is AVP trained, serves on the AVP Council and takes an active role in writing the project’s applications, making decisions on the project and evaluating it.

In Russia AVP workshops have been held with various groups of people, including young people, refugees, psychologists, social workers, and more recently with children in orphanages. The AVP Moscow and Lipetsk groups have also built up a working relationship with the military in those AVP Ukraine prison workshop cities, and workshops are also held with conscripts in the Russian army. We believe this to be unique to AVP Russia. Such workshops are necessary and prove to be useful in solving the problem of aggression and violence faced by many in Russian society and in the army. The high level of poverty and alcoholism in Russia, especially in the provinces, commonly results in a high level of violence. The figures on domestic violence in Russia are alarming: one in four women has suffered from domestic violence at some point in her life, although support groups argue that the real figure is even higher. Children who grow up in a violent family often go on to be violent or abusive.

AVP workshops have been held for over thirty years and it has been shown that the workshops provide people with the skills to lead nonviolent lives, based on respecting one another. The workshops allow people to experience and deepen their understanding of assertiveness, respect for all, community building, co-operation and trust. They prove particularly useful for people who have resentments that become grudges, who get upset at being ignored, who have difficulty with anger and who are bullies or are being bullied. Over the thirteen years that AVP workshops have been held in Russia, we have found that they are also effective in dealing with many of the problems faced in Russian society.

In 2007 we hope to see AVP Russia develop even further so than more people can benefit from its workshops. We aim to do this by finding secure and long-term sources of funding for it. We also hope that in time AVP Russia can become financially independent from FHM and be able to raise its own funds from within Russia.

More information about AVP can be found at: http://www.avpbritain.org.uk/ and about AVP Russia (in Russian) at http://www.avp.inrussia.org/ and AVP Dzerzhinsk

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Outreach Work in Russia and Neighbouring States

Outreach remained an important direction of work for FHM in 2006. The Quaker website and forum in Russian continued to develop. The website and forum allow people interested in Quakerism to find out more and read Quaker literature which has been translated into Russian. Through the forum we have learned about groups of people interested in Quakerism and are planning to visit these groups of seekers in 2007.

FHM continues to run projects to translate Quaker literature. Currently we have one project to translate parts of Britain Yearly Meeting’s ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’ into Russian and another project to translate several Quaker leaflets into Georgian. On the Quaker Forum there is a reading panel who discuss the translations and offer advice to the translator if needed.

In 2007 it is hoped that the Russian translation of ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’ could be used as a guide in discussion groups to create a ‘Russian Faith and Practice’.

In May 2006 Woodbrooke held a ‘Woodbrooke on the Road’ workshop in Liepaja, Latvia. FHM was able to help some seekers from Russia to attend this event.

Tbilisi group meeting In September 2006, a week before the Russian-Georgian border was closed, Sergei Grushko and Peter Dyson went to visit a group of seekers in Tbilisi, the capital of Tbilisi, who regularly meet and hold Meeting for Worship. Peter and Sergei held seminars there on various aspects of Quakerism and enjoyed the legendary Georgian hospitality. We plan to keep up these connections with the Tbilisi Quaker worship group in 2007.

Finally an ‘Inreach Gathering’ was hosted by FHM for members and attenders of Moscow Monthly Meeting. The one-day gathering allowed people to share with one another their experiences and thoughts on Quaker Worship.

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Projects against Racism

In 2006 the problem of racism and xenophobia in Russia again made international news headlines. At the beginning of the year a twenty-year-old skinhead burst into a Moscow synagogue and stabbed eight people. In August violent protests and attacks on businesses owned by people from the Caucasus occurred in the Northern Russian town of Kondopoga following the killing of two local men. Also in August a bomb went off at a market in Moscow, where mainly people from Central Asia work, killing 13 people. Three suspects have been charged with racially motivated murder. In September and November unsanctioned demonstrations in Moscow by groups of skinheads were broken up by the police and throughout the year several foreign students were attacked in various Russian cities. Amnesty International, in its report on racism in Russia, described the situation as ‘out of control’.

Although the western media does seem to sensationalise this issue, there is a very real and obvious problem of racism and xenophobia in Russia and this problem cannot be solved overnight. At the beginning of the year FHM funded a project in the Pskov region run by a human rights activist called Anna Vanina. Anna was very concerned by the trend she saw of young people in the villages joining far-right and skinhead groups. Anna and a group of volunteers developed a programme in which they visited rural schools and libraries and ran workshops on the dangers of fascism. Films about the Holocaust were also shown at these workshops and information was placed in the libraries on this theme. At least two thousand people took part in this project. Anna said that the workshops were excellent in focusing attention on the problem and in getting the school children to think and talk about the problems caused by intolerance. But of course this work needs to continue if it is to have a lasting effect and FHM hopes to work with Anna and with other anti-racism projects in 2007.

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Projects with Children

Throughout 2006 FHM has continued funding projects aimed at improving the lives of children. One new project for us was the All-Saints Centre. At the Centre various activities, such as art classes are held for children with various disabilities and with children from disadvantaged families. In addition to the activities, children also have the opportunity to have a consultation with a physiotherapist, psychologist and speech therapist. On a recent visit FHM staff were impressed with the community feel to the centre and the fact that all the parents of the children who attend the centre help out in some way or another. We also thought it was very beneficial that able-bodied children spend time with disabled children and take part in the same activities. This is not usually the case in Russia.

Children from Raduga The project ‘Captains of Destiny’ continued throughout 2006. This project involves a group of psychologists who visit a Moscow orphanage and hold workshops with the children. It is a major problem in Russia that children leave the state orphanage totally unprepared for an independent life. The workshops are aimed at improving the children's self- esteem and ability to be self-reliant and lowering their level of aggression and feeling of neglect and distrust.

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Conscription and COs

Although in 2006 there has been no change in the law in relation to military service, the Minister of Defence has talked about the plan to halve the term of service to one year and remove many of the present legal exemptions to serving. Currently only eleven per cent of Russian men serve and the Government wants to see this figure increase. There is no mention as to whether the term of the alternative national service for COs, which is currently 42 months, will also be decreased.

In January 2006 the shocking case of Andrei Sychev highlighted the fact that bullying is still a massive problem in the Russian Army. Private Sychev had to have his legs and genitals amputated after he was forced to squat for hours whilst enduring beatings. Unfortunately no great improvement in the conditions faced by new conscripts has been seen, although at least the Russian media has started to talk about the bullying in the army and the authorities have admitted the problem exists and that something needs to be done.

In 2006 FHM funded a project of German Alyotkin, who is a Conscientious Objector activist based in Kazan. German’s project was to set up a website so that conscripts who have taken alternative national service can share their experience and give advice to others. In Russia there is very little information for those wishing to take the alternative service option and so this site has proved invaluable for those wishing to find out more. The site is now up and running and can be found at http://kazan.agsnik.ru. In 2007 we will continue to work with German and are funding a further project to create and distribute a newsletter with advice and information about the alternative service. German says there is a need for such a newsletter as national alternative service conscripts often have no knowledge of their legal rights and so their rights are breached. Also he hopes the newsletter will help to unite the small groups of alternative service conscripts scattered across the county.

FHM’s Alternatives to Violence Project also holds workshops with Russian conscripts, including workshops on the theme of bullying. These workshops have received much positive feedback from the conscripts, for example after taking part in an AVP workshop an eighteen-year-old conscript called Aleksandr said ‘I have learnt many interesting and useful things and I will think more when a conflict arises and try to understand the other person. There is a need to hold such exercises more often in the army in the future. It has helped me to cope with problems I face in my new life in the army’.

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