Access Press Makes Russian
Connection
by Terri Ricci
CONNECT/US-RUSSIA(CONNECT)
is a Minneapolis-based organization with a mission to promote a more
humane and peaceful world by embracing critical issues facing the
United States and the former Soviet Union through the creation of
collaborative relationships. CONNECT recently received a grant from
the Open World Leadership Center to bring a delegation of professionals
from Russia to Minnesota. The Open World Program, based in Washington,
DC, brings emerging Russian leaders to the U.S. on 10-day programs
to experience U.S. democracy and free enterprise in action in communities
across the United States.
This program, “Serving Russians with Disabilities,” provided
an opportunity for seven delegates to visit the Twin Cities and obtain
information to enhance the work of their organizations back in Russia.
CONNECT designed a professional agenda to familiarize delegates with:
• educational programs
for children with limited mental and physical abilities;
• social adaptation
and integration programs;
• general care
programs;
• integrated measures
of social assistance;
• employment issues
and programs;
• funding issues
and sources;
• technology utilization.
On June 24, 2005, the
Russian delegates visited with the Minnesota Business Leadership
Network at Medtronic to learn about each other’s
programs for the disabled. In their discussions, the delegates and
the Business Leadership Network member companies noted the many similarities
between the US and Russian services or lack of services for people
with disabilities.
Russian parents have a more passive role in caring for their child.
The reasons for this are:
1. The distance between
the cities’ programs and the people
needing those services.
Because of their country’s massive size, the Russian delegates pointed
out that servicing people with disabilities is difficult. Many children with
disabilities have to live at the school during the week and are only able to
go home on the weekends. This ongoing disconnection between the parents and
children plays a factor in the parents’ lack of involvement to advocate
for their children’s needs.
2. The idea that the Russian
state should provide for the services and programs for a person with
a disability.
It is the state’s role, not the parents’ or family’s role,
to give the children the education and training they need to become self-sufficient.
This is the biggest difference between the two countries’ means of servicing
people with disabilities. In Minnesota, especially, our non-profit advocate
organizations work through government and other funding sources to provide
better treatment, education, job training, and employment for the disabled.
The seven delegates
represented a variety of Non-government Organizations (NGOs) and
rehabilitation centers from cities across Russia. In Novosibirsk,
Tamara Antolyevna Polenova is the Director of Social Work for the
transition services for children. Her organization’s services
are more advanced than the transition services in Minnesota. Local
employers and agencies learned how the Russian transition service
provides training and other emotional and psychological care for
the disabled as they shift into the workforce. One institution has
a training/mentoring program that pairs people with disabilities
together to help each other adjust and adapt to living with a disability
and to work with other people with disabilities in the orphanages
and the veterans’ hospitals.
Other areas of Russia are not as advanced as Novosibirsk. Although
Polenova does not see many people with disabilities committing crimes
in her region, the area where Valeriy Vladimirovich Chereshnev works
with disabled youth is struggling to transition children with disabilities
as well as trying to keep them out of the correctional system. His
organization is in the process of creating an educational and correctional
program to help adolescents shift more easily into society by having
better educational and employment opportunities.
Similar to the situation
in the U.S., funding is a critical issue in Russia. In Chereshnev’s
city, there are 12,000 children with disabilities and only enough
funding each year to serve 1,000 children. The rest of the children
are expected to get services from other areas of the state, which
often provide services that are not as effective.
Chereshnev stated, “Businesses and people with disabilities
live in different realms. Even though we have laws that state that
businesses have to have a 3% quota for employees with disabilities,
no businesses are fined if they refuse to hire a person with a disability.” In
contrast, the United States has Affirmative Action business guidelines
in place for people of minority status, but the government does not
regulate these guidelines for people with disabilities. Chereshnev
also added that people with disabilities, who are entrepreneurs,
have no insurance even though the government run businesses do. This
sure sounds familiar to the healthcare crisis in Minnesota.
The organization that Polenova runs has business leaders on their
board of trustees, however, most of the financial support the organization
receives comes from the government rather than from these businesses.
They do, however, have strong community leaders who help create jobs
for disabled people and they provide the transition services for
free for people with disabilities.
By the end of the day, the Minnesota Business Leadership Network
(BLN) and Access Press agreed that there is a need to travel to Russia
to learn from the Russian organizations. All of the delegates were
very excited that Minnesota had a disability newspaper and they all
took copies to share within their regions.
Access Press plans to incorporate a Russia/Minnesota section in
the upcoming issues of the newspaper to cover highlights of the great
work happening over there. The goal of this new section will be to
stay connected and informed about the Russian programs and to learn
how we might be able to incorporate some of their experience into
our Minnesota programs.
