Tuesday 30 May
There are no prophets in the fatherland |
The fund of preparation of personal reserve “State Club” publicized a list of winners of the open competition on allocation of grants for non-commercial and non-governmental organisations for the realisation of projects having social value in the sphere of support for youth initiatives, projects of youth movements and organisations. Unfortunately, the project of the Center for Interethnic Cooperation “Distribution of ideas of tolerance in the youth milieu” did not belong to the winners. We requested 1500000 ruble out of this fund and promised to give another 360000 ruble of our money. The idea for the project has been brought forward by participants of the training “Youth and tolerance” in Anapa last year (http://www.interethnic.org/News/081008_1.html). The best way of opposition against extremism among young people is to popularize tolerance among young people. And the best students of the country can solve these problems.
For the project, which has been presented to the “State Club”, we planned the following work: 1. A two-day inter-regional conference in 2. Realisation of at least two debates at the universities of 3. Two-day trainings at the universities of 4. Realisation of lessons of tolerance at schools and professional and technical educational institutions in 5. Realisation of evenings of friendship and tolerance at the universities of 6. Realisation of a final conference in For a successful realisation of this work the Centre for Interethnic Cooperation signed cooperation agreements with the So we did not receive the fund on realisation of socially significant projects in 2009 from the government of It is characteristic that the Ministry for Regional Development of the That raises the natural question, if we aren’t guilty ourselves, aren’t we able to write good projects, aren’t we able to carry them out normally? Not everything is so simple. The Centre for Interethnic Cooperation won grants from the European Union, from the Council of Europe, from the American non-governmental funds MOTT and MacArthur, our projects were supported by the embassies of There are simply no prophets in the fatherland. It remains nothing to us than searching for means for our projects abroad in the year of the youth. One consolation remains for us: after each successful activity in the region, there comes the standard question “and who financed you?” After the answer “The European Union or the American fund MOTA” follows “and have you asked the Russian authorities for financial support?” This is not an idle question. There are many organisations who on principle don’t ask the Russian authorities for funds. And the Centre for Interethnic Cooperation on principle asks for these funds, because it is impossible to create a normal civil society in a country only at the expense on foreign funds. So we have a good answer: “Yes, and often. But…”
Ashot Ayrapetyan |