The Federal Council of FICE have been guests
of the re-formed Russian Section

Emilia Chervinskaya promised us beautiful weather in Moscow for the FICE meeting in May, and on 1st May she was proved right. Though we had landed a few days before in a snowstorm, the weather turned to glorious sunshine. In between, there was a mixture of sun, rain and snow – warmth and cold alternating. Intriguingly, there was even a day when it was snowing at the top floor of the hotel, and raining at ground level.

Moscow presents the same mixture – a lot of problems, a lot of achievements and a lot of hopes and promises. Although very Russian in character, Moscow impresses as a world-class capital, ranking with major cities in other countries. It is a large city – over ten million people, and more if you include the environs.

Of course, there is the city centre with Red Square, the Kremlin and the grand nineteenth century buildings. There are the parks, the statues and the tourist shopping areas. But the bulk of Moscow is industrial and reflects the developments of the twentieth century, and in some ways, the evidence of the life of ordinary Russians was of more interest than the tourist attractions.

The rows of little shops and individual traders, for example, and the types of goods they had on offer, ranging from electrical goods to kittens, were of more human interest than the endless Russian dolls - though, it has to be admitted that the adaptation of the genre to include Harry Potter dolls and Saddam Hussain dolls had its own fascination.

Driving across the city, there are miles and miles of factories, utilities and tower blocks. The housing is the most interesting as its style shows the period in which it was built, ranging from the modest Krushchev blocks, through the solid Brezhnev constructions to the grand “wedding cakes” covered in turrets and fancy detail, put up on Stalin’s orders.

The View from the Cosmos

Our hotel, the Cosmos, had 3500 beds and was built to serve the Olympic games. From the twenty-fifth floor one had an impressive panorama of Moscow, looking down on the onion-domed churches, the fly-overs, the continuous traffic and the anonymous shops which advertised themselves as sellers of “products”.

According to the Rough Guide, the Hotel Cosmos was known for its Mafia links, which were no longer in evidence, and for its prostitutes, who were – at least, once they were back from their Easter holidays. From a child protection perspective it was noted that some of them appeared to be under age.

Travelling in Moscow

For much of the time, we were transported by minibus to our meetings and visits, and the skill of the drivers was much admired, as they wove in and out of the traffic lanes, often unmarked. They seemed to be able to squeeze through gaps that were narrower than the vehicles.

More often, we went by Metro. The Metro system is one of the glories of Moscow. Although now in need of a face lift, it still provides a model for a mass transport system, with trains coming through every two minutes, and a continuous flow of passengers emerging from deep beneath the earth up the long escalators.

Some of the stations were magnificent. The one serving the hotel is lit by chandeliers, for example, while that linked with the Kiev terminus is adorned with magnificent mosaics portraying the history of Ukraine.

The Metro stations are also the place where some of the street children congregate. We saw two groups, one made up of four or five boys who seemed to be seven or eight years old, the other consisting of two boys and a girl who had run away from an orphanage in St Petersburg three days before. They knew of the shelters and other services on offer, but preferred to sit on the floor begging from passing travellers.

Music and Dancing

A complete contrast was provided by a concert at the Moscow Conservatoire, held in honour of Professor Leonid Roshal, a top paediatrician and expert in disaster medicine, who had been nominated as “Personality of Russia” for saving the lives of children during the terrorist attack on the musical Nord Ost.

The first half of the concert was provided by a youth orchestra, with children as soloists. Their self-assurance and technical brilliance were outstanding. The second half was provided by their adult counterparts, and continued (together with congratulatory speeches and bunches of flowers) till well after eleven.

Another night we attended the Bolshoi Theatre and saw La Sylphide. In view of FICE’s plans to hold the next Congress in Glasgow, the ballet was  appropriately set in Scotland, (in a baronial “shack” according to the programme, completed with a sad-looking moose-head with down-turned horns). This did not detract from the wonderful setting and magnificent performance.

Celebrations

The tourist elements included visits to churches, where the Orthodox Easter was being celebrated, a trip to the Tretyakov Gallery with its magnificent collection of ikons and Russian paintings and a visit to see Lenin, which was free but had to be undertaken at a respectful shuffle.

The blend of past history and present developments proved fascinating. We  visited Red Square on our first evening. As a non-Russian, I recall the Square’s use for Cold War displays of weaponry, but the impression it created on our visit was less threatening, with a beautiful glowing sunset and snow swirling down at the same time.

A few days later we saw the First of May demonstrations. The Communist Party came first, with a cavalcade of tens of thousands of members, carrying banners which stretched across the street. Their party took over an hour to pass the point where we were standing.

We also happened on a celebration of Marshal Zhukov, who could arguably be said to have had more impact than any other single person on the outcome of the Second World War. A number of veterans presented their roses at his monument, while a military band played.

And then to wind up the trip, there was the picnic in Kolomenskoe, a park where the Tsar Alexey had built a summer palace, now used by Muscovites as a picturesque place for a walk among the churches, bell towers and reconstructed wooden buildings set among the woods and orchards by the Moscow River. The picnic consisted of a bottle of brandy, a bottle of champagne and two litres of red wine between four people, which gave one a new perspective on Russian hospitality.

Business

Against this varied background, FICE conducted its Federal Council business. Unfortunately, attendance at this Council meeting was lower than usual, in part because of difficulties for delegates in obtaining visas, but also because of co-incidental factors such as ill-health. Nonetheless, a useful meeting was held, at which a number of items were addressed.

The minutes can be found on the website of FICE-International, and they include progress reports on projects and all the usual business matters. Among the projects in hand :

-   it was decided to proceed with the third Friendship Camp in former     Yugoslavia, despite shortage of funds;

-   Ewan Anderson gave a description of work in which he had been         involved in Iraq, which re-raised the possibility of establishing  Education sans Frontieres;

-   Anton Tobe outlined the creation of an independent but linked   Foundation to be used to support FICE projects, which met with       enthusiastic support;

-   links had been made with possible members in francophone North and           West Africa;

-   Gerd Schemenau reported on progress in a project in Bulgaria funded            by the European Union and set up under FICE-Europe’s auspices to       develop non-residential provision for children

-   it was decided to send a further letter to the United Nations expressing members’ concern about the effects of war on children;

-   Sari Laaksonen of Finland agreed to co-ordinate the PEP programme           for the next twelve months;

-   other work, such as the planning of the next Congress in Glasgow in    2004 and the expansion of the FICE-Inter website, had been progressed.

Meetings

We visited the Ministry of Labour and Social Development and met three senior officials responsible for policies relating to FICE’s work - Mrs Kuprianova, the Deputy Chief of the Department of Children and Youth, Mrs Ignatieva, Adviser to the Minister on children’s issues, and Mrs Litcheva, the Deputy Chief of the Department of International Co-operation. As is often the case in meetings of this sort, introductions, explanations and welcomes took up much of the time available, and it was towards the end that real dialogue began.

Russia has 31 million children scattered across its 89 regions, which have different cultures, economies, traditions and geography. Within Moscow children make up 20% of the population.

The governmental structure in Russia functions at three levels - federal, regional and municipal, and each plays its part in the National Plan of Action. Russian regional and local government has been reorganised recently, and the new systems are in the process of shaking down. Responsibility has been passed to the municipalities to provide services for children, so that arrangements can be handled on a local basis.

There have also been major changes in the law, including the Code of the Family, which enables fostercare, and a range of measures for dealing with street children, providing preventative services and child protection measures. There are at least three ministries responsible for services for children - the Ministry for Education, the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, which we visited and which is responsible for young people with physical disabilities, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is in charge of shelters and rehabilitation centres.

The range of services provided by these ministries is broad, including boarding schools, known as internats, with education on the premises, and homes called orphanages and shelters, mainly without educational facilities.

Street Children

The problems presented to the authorities by street children are immense. Their health problems are such that a complete hospital has had to be set aside for their treatment. It has been calculated that the numbers have risen in recent years from 1 million to 3 or 4 million now, and it has been decided that street children who have drifted to Moscow from other regions should be returned to their home areas. It remains to be seen whether this measure will be successful, or whether the children will gravitate back to the opportunities which the capital offers.

The phenomenon of street children has only been apparent in Russia for the last decade, and no research has yet been undertaken to find out what happens to them in the longer run. As in other countries, street children include both those who live at home but spend their daytimes on the street and those who live there all the time. Identifying a child as a street child is a snapshot categorisation which says nothing about his or her long-term lifestyle, and they could become successful survivors or casualties.

The Russian Children’s Foundation

In the afternoon, a visit was made to the offices of Albert Likanov, the head of the Russian Children’s Foundation, an organisation which is one of Russia’s two representative members in FICE. The office was sited in an impressive eighteenth century building which had escaped the fire of 1812 when Napoleon encountered the Russians’ scorched earth policy. Mr Likanov explained that the work undertaken to restore the building had not used funds set aside for children, and in effect he had had to attract funds for two separate ventures.

Mr Likanov is clearly most successful at fund-raising and the Foundation, which was set up in 1987, has been entirely supported by voluntary funding. For many years, he has also been influential with Russia’s top politicians such as Chernenko, Khrushchev and Gorbachev, opening their eyes to the predicament of children. As a publisher of magazines for young people, he had been appalled by the standards of care he had found, and had therefore set up his charity to improve the quality of services.

First they had collected funding to provide state homes with buses - 1500 in all. Then they had turned to children’s homes, and had now set up 568 family-type homes to replace the large state orphanages, run by couples with the father maintaining his occupation. The Foundation’s role has been to act as patron in establishing the homes, encouraging the state to take them over.

The scale of the problem to be tackled is massive. Over the last decade a million children have been abandoned by their parents, and in 2001 the number of children needing accommodation was 128,000. In this respect, perestroika had been disastrous, with problems of alcoholism, unemployment and lack of education in its wake.

As an NGO, the Foundation is free to take innovative action, and it has started a number of initiatives to help people escape poverty and support themselves, including the provision of small tractors, minibuses and cows. Funding has come from individuals and organisations.

The Russian Children’s Foundation now has over 300 staff; it helps Russian children obtain specialist healthcare in the United States; it runs magazines for children and staff; and it makes awards to people who have done outstanding work for children. Today - on 1st June - it organises Child Protection Day, when 10,000 children from all over Russia are descending on Moscow and are packing out a dozen theatres for celebrations.

Visits

A highlight of the week was a meeting with members of the reconstituted FICE-Russia. Interestingly, a large number of the members work for NGOs which have been set up in the last ten years, since perestroika. The numbers of such bodies serving children and young people have mushroomed, and they have now reached the position where they recognise the need for co-ordination and combined campaigning. Setting up FICE-Russia is an idea which has found its time.

The roles of the organisations show how Russians and the international agencies helping them are innovating to deal with the problems faced by children in need and to find alternatives to the traditional answer of placing children in orphanages. The conditions in some of these homes are very poor. Children have responded by taking matters into their own hands, whether as street children or entering prostitution, preferring the freedom of being on the street and the lack of obligations placed on them.

This presents workers with difficult decisions. Clearly, one should respect children’s choices, but the desperation that makes living on the street more attractive than life in a children’s homes indicates serious shortfalls in the quality of care on offer. It makes the switch from residential care to other forms of support for children understandable as a general policy, even though good residential care can offer much to children.

Otradnoye Shelter

These two contrasting approaches were in evidence in two visits made by Federal Council members. The first was to Otradnoye, a shelter which houses 140 children aged 3 to 18 under the management of Mrs Barsukova, the Director. It is sited in the middle of a square made up of high-rise blocks of flats, which overlook the building. When it was first built, it was not wanted by the surrounding community, but now it is accepted and is seen as a focus for some community activities.

The children live in groups in the shelter, and some are taught on the premises, though if they remain for any length of time, they go out to school. There are also specialists, such as psychologists, doctors, paediatricians and other therapists as part of the staff team, and the shelter has a system for care planning and case reviews, with records kept on computer.

We were well looked after on our visit, and a highlight was a display of dancing by some of the older young people, beautifully executed. They had spent the morning preparing, and were beautifully dressed and made up. I suspect that participation in the event will have given them a real sense of achievement, as well as enjoyment for the visitors.

Centre N19

The second visit was to a restructured orphanage, Centre N19, which deals with a range of issues, covering in part the responsibilities of all the three ministries responsible for this field. The exact format had been designed by the principal, Mrs Ternosvskaia, who clearly had seen the need to reform the child protection system in Russia. She identified, in particular, the problems of the many different routes into care and of the decisions required.

The Centre has three residential groups with dedicated medical services, so that it can help any child. The system is sufficiently adaptable that it can provide special services for the individual, such as suicide watch. Apart from education and care, a key focus is the resolution of legal problems with the local authorities.

There is a rehabilitation unit involved in research and investigation and the assessment of each child. There are also two family units which provide therapy and personal and social development for severely abused children.

Beyond these, there is responsibility for young people in foster homes and a model for their care has been developed, involving work on adoption, guardianship, kinship care and receiving families. The various teams employed within the Centre include a fostering service, a birth family team, a psychology team and a social work team.

There remain major difficulties over the assessment of need, and in particular linking the assessment with local authority decision-making, partly because of lack of clarity about the process. When this unit was first set up, its activities had been strictly ultra vires, but they had support from the top, and the experiment has proved successful.

The Promise of Moscow in May

I hope that the mixture of tourist observations and professional reports gives a flavour of the problems facing people working with children and young people, the context in which they are working and the solutions they are devising.

It is said that Moscow is not typical of Russia, and that outside the capital, living conditions are much poorer. The impression created by Moscow, though, was one of optimism, growth and an improving economy. There is still a massive amount to do, and the problems represented by the number of street children are a national disgrace in a developed country, but there is certainly the promise that things are getting better, and we wish FICE-Russia’s members well in the tasks that they face in helping children get a better deal.