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JOURNAL WITHIN A JOURNAL PSKOV PROVINCE
Guest editor – Natalia Vasilieva
Respected readers, women and men, Greetings from the women of ancient Pskov, a most beautiful nook in our Russia, the place where Russia was born, and where now live restless women who want to change their lives and everyone’s for the better. The overall instability, the socio-economic situation in the country cannot but be reflected in our conditions here, as just one aspect will demonstrate – the demographic scene, which was already seen as a crisis in l992. In l994 the city of Pskov had 2500 inhabitants, and by l999 the number was down to 2007. The mortality rate is sharply up, especially in the village, and the birth rate is low. The stoppage of industry, the slump in agriculture, unemployment, family insolvency due to non payment of wages and child subsidies, people’s confusion and desperation – this is our reality.
For several years, the Women’s Independent Social Center has been working in our district as a public association enabling us to see the real state of things and to adopt realistic means of working with the population, the organs of power, and with businesspeople. We are all the time thinking about how to help one another, our families and those around us.
THE HISTORY OF CREATING THE WOMEN’S INDEPENDENT SOCIETAL CENTER OF THE PSKOV REGION
[What follows is an editorial summary of a long article by Natalia Vasilieva on the history and current work of the Women’s Independent Societal Center.]
It all started in l993 in the city of Pskov with a School for Women’s Social Self-Improvement on the premise that “every woman wants to be not only attractive and charming, but cultivated, communicative and self-confident in her behavior. The school had four courses: outward appearance; academic self improvement to inform women about various aspects of life and help them find their own capabilities; women in the family, focusing on relations with spouses and children’ women in business and public life, focusing on knowledge and skills and the psychological support needed to function well in these areas.
The school staff included doctors, teachers, psychologists and economists, and was financed at that stage by the regional government together with non-governmental sponsors, with the goal of having it eventually pay its own way.
In l994 the economic situation in the region worsened, and still more so the situation of women, their contribution to regional development underestimated and their problems disparaged. At this point the subject of women’s self-improvement receded to the back burner and the school became a center for the societal support of women.
The government was slow to address these new problems, so we at the center tried to attract the attention of the “third sector” – the NGOs – as more active and flexible organizations.
At that time the women in the region had advanced the candidacy of Natalia Vasilieva [author of this article] for the regional Pskov assembly of deputies. She was elected and chosen chair of the assembly’s committee on societal policy, and work on these societal problems moved forward on a legislative level. A number of normative acts and laws were written by the committee and adopted by the assembly: “On the rights of the child (the second such in Russia after Tatarstan’s law); a law relating to pregnant nursing mothers and the young student family; and others. Many societal programs were included in the budget [which does not mean they were actually funded – editor] and a lot of attention was given to the problem of women and her family, including a whole program entitled “Pskov women.”
Natalia Vasileva was invited to the United States in October of l994 under the program “women’s leadership of NGOs” funded by US AID, and the experience she gained there was a great help in creating the center in Pskov. In April of l995 it was officially registered as a public association, a non-commercial NGO.
The center’s goal is to raise women’s status and defend their rights: by broadening and strengthening the network of women’s organizations and the whole women’s movement; doing research on women; international cooperation including participating in educational programs; holding conferences, seminars, roundtables, etc.; publishing information bulletins and newsletters, preparing radio and television broadcasts, writing newspaper articles; and last but not least, giving specific practical assistance to women.
Seven women head the center’s various sectors of activity, eight women work on the telephone trust line, and anywhere from 25-60 women work on various activities, all as volunteers. The center is financed by membership contributions and sponsor support.
The author goes on to describe in detail the programs and activities of the center. In the area of research there were two themes, “The Family at the Crossroads – Marital Relations” (the research was done with the help of the Moscow Institute of the Socio-Economic Problems of the Population; “Pskov Women in the Labor Market,” focusing on unemployment (here the center also had the help of a Moscow institute and the results were published in a book); “The Problem of Violence,” which produced a lot of material for analysis, and the results will be part of a book on Pskov due to come out early in the new century.
The press and publicity work of the center has resulted in many newsletters and bulletins, and seven issues of its own small newspaper, “Pskov Woman,” as well as radio and television programs and columns and monthly informative articles in the local press. The center has a growing library of books and materials and video documentary films done by women’s groups all over Russia.
The center’s educational work included a roundtable in April l996 on “Defending Women’s Rights – the Problem of Domestic Violence” and a seminar on “Problems and Rights of Women: Work, Family, Reforms.” Funds from the Ford Foundation helped to systematize and broaden the educational and informational outreach. A database was created on the women’s movement, locally and nationally and internationally, and on women leaders. One objective was to create a network of organizations and leaders and to share information on such subjects as how to set up an organization and shape the human relationships within it, and how to influence processes in the community. Altogether in l997 there were eleven seminars and conferences in the region with 235 women participating. These seminars included discussions, role-playing, formulating solutions to problems and sending recommendations to the organs of government.
Leaders of NGOs from other part of Russia took part in preparing and holding the seminars and conferences, including the Women’s Information Network and the Association “Women and Conversion” from Moscow, the Moscow crisis-psychological center for women “Anna,” the St Petersburg crisis center and the humanitarian-politological center “Strategy,” and from Petrozavodsk, the Karelian Center for Gender Studies. These and other groups provided experts, consultants, lecturers.
In preparing these gatherings, we informed local authorities from different government agencies when and where we were meeting and what we would be discussing, in hopes they would send representatives. “Unfortunately, the organs of power do not see the importance of these problems, even though they say that they consider our center to be a significant organization in resolving the problems of the region.”
An outcome of all this was the creation in l997 of a crisis counseling service and a telephone trust line-- in effect the only place at that time where women in crisis could turn for help -- and a roundtable discussion on violence in which some government representatives did participate, and a half hour documentary film which was shown on local television. The author gives a lot of statistics on domestic violence in the Pskov region, confirming the existence of the problem and the acute need to make headway on solving it.
The center started self-defense training courses for women and a legal defense service.
It has a socio-economic program with the goal of creating a cluster of small enterprises to employ women ( for example, a fashion salon, clothing production, home sewing and knitting and making children’s toys, developing tourism). Other programs of the center include “Women and Politics,” a health school, “The Older generation,” “Rural Women,” and charity work.
In the final part of her article the author gives statistics and information on the declining economic situation in the region and the shortfalls and failures of the regional government to meet its financial obligations, thereby underlining the importance of the center as a lifeline for women.
SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE VILLAGE
We are always talking about the problems of the city and what agitates city folk, such as where to work and what to live on. But how about the village? What are rural folk to do? Hasn’t the time come for us to look at their problems and to recall that in the country as a whole, they too are numerous and no fewer than city residents.
The socio-economic situation is getting worse not only in the city, but in the countryside as well. Imagine what is happening in our villages – problems are doubling and tripling. People used to think and say that the only thing the village lacks is culture to enrich life, but now in my village they are thinking about how adequately to feed their families, where to find work in the area. The question arises, what’s the point of living – we’re all human beings and want to live well, we all want to be successful and for life to get better. That’s why people are leaving and our villages are becoming empty and lonely places, like the old folks left behind. What’s to be done? How can we change the situation there so people will stay. Today it is just a rhetorical question, but one that needs to be answered and resolved. Government power by itself cannot hold back people who strive to improve their lives, as used to be the case not so long ago.
We in our women’s center [the same one summarized above] made an effort to answer this question. Who other than us women knows and understands our own problems and those of our families and children! We women are stronger and we are the first to try and make everything better. This past year we held eleven seminars at which we raised various issues and problems and looked for solutions. We held them in various districts of the Pskov region. … The same issues kept coming up again and again: irresponsible parenting arising from societal causes and the rapid growth of poor families. It is explained by unemployment in the village; drunkenness among both men and women; the closing of schools and kindergartens and libraries; the high illness rate of children who are mentally and physically weak; women’s unemployment, which is explained by the family’s low level linked to the absence of jobs in the village and the impossibility of creating a job for oneself, and also linked to women’s overdrinking out of desperation; and the violence existing both inside the home and in society.
We discussed the question of how to live in conditions of economic crisis, how to raise the status of healthy prospering families. Overall, 40 action programs emerged from our work of examining these situations. The next step was participation in a conference under the slogan “Gathering Strength Through Mutual Action.” The main aim of the participants was to find ways of joining forces in solving the problems concerning us all. People came from various districts of Pskov region and from other cities of our country – Petrozavodsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg and even from far off Sweden which, it turns out, is not indifferent to our problems. At the conference we got acquainted with some very interesting women with complex and different life stories. Here is how two of them talked about themselves.
Olga Mikhailovna Ivanova – Porkhovsky district: We are resettled people. The enterprise where we had another twelve years of work to go until retirement shut down. We were left without means of survival. We were not transferred to the welfare account of either the region or the district. Our electricity is often cut off, the faucets suddenly go dry, the sewage system fails. In general there’s no drinkable water in our little settlement. The people here have been reduced to poverty. On September first, we couldn’t send our children to school, we couldn’t buy the most essential things for them. We survive by gathering berries and mushrooms and selling them in the city.
Ludmila Petrovna Rodina – Pytalovsky district: I represent a women’s organization, “The Union of Women of Pytalovsky region.” My work and that of the whole organization is to help women and families get oriented in these economic conditions. The first thing I called attention to is the non-payment of pensions and welfare subsidies, and unemployment, since our garment factory is under threat of closure and most of its workers are women. We help women who come to us with specific needs. …
[The author ends by briefly listing some of her center’s programs for rural women, providing free legal and psychological counseling, and setting up small and home-based businesses.]