Tolerance

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 Moscow on basis of the Russian Humanitarian State University

2. Realisation of at least two debates at the universities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Samara and Astrakhan

3. Two-day trainings at the universities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Samara and Astrakhan

4. Realisation of lessons of tolerance at schools and professional and technical educational institutions in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Samara and Astrakhan

5. Realisation of evenings of friendship and tolerance at the universities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Samara and Astrakhan

6. Realisation of a final conference in Moscow on basis of the Russian Humanitarian State University

For a successful realisation of this work the Centre for Interethnic Cooperation signed cooperation agreements with the Russian Humanitarian State University, the Ural Economic State University and the Academy of Civil Service Astrakhan. To all appearances, this was not enough. To tell the truth, we discovered already in the stage of filling in the demand that the organisers were rather interested in the organisation who submitted the request and not in the project. Why should they otherwise have requested authorised documents with information about what funds from and how much we received grants and so on. As a result, the information of the project took only the fourth part of the demand, which suggested the idea that the competition was not between projects, but between organisations. Well, who won the competition can be read on the site http://www.gosclub.ru/images/content/tablk.html. However, only names of projects can be found there. What the winners are going to do for the Russian youth can only be guessed.

So we did not receive the fund on realisation of socially significant projects in 2009 from the government of Moscow, though there was the selection theme “Propagation of intercultural, interethnic consent in the youth environment”. Knowing people told at once, that we had no chance. Apparently, it was necessary to enter the register of non-governmental and non-commercial organisations cooperating with organs of executive authorities of the city of Moscow (http://www.mosportal.ru/7/1/index.htm) to receive the grant. That registration of the Ministry of Justice is not enough, it is necessary to make another registration, actually to obtain the license for activity. This is certainly a new word in the development of the civil society. You wish to enter the club for the elite – pass a face-control.

It is characteristic that the Ministry for Regional Development of the Russian Federation did not wish to finance our youth projects in the year of the youth.

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 Great Britain, the USA, Germany and Switzerland. And we made all our activities on these means, including trainings for representatives of executive organs, the militia and ethnic and youth organisations.

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