Three stories of volunteers of the Center "Anton here is near"

The company "Gazprom Neft" has been supporting the Anton here nearby center since 2015 as part of the Social Investment Program " Native Cities ". Employees of the company organize their volunteer projects for students, and on the weekend they work in workshops with them: finished products then become lots of the Christmas Fair, and the revenue from their sale goes to the development of projects of the center.

With the support of Gazprom Neft, the center was also opened for working with people with autistic spectrum disorders that prepares them for employment, and together with the scientific and technical center of the company at the Anton here nearby festival, a children's program with a lecture is organized.

In December, “Anton here nearby” turned five years old. You can find out about how to support the center here .

In the Center “Anton here is nearby”, which supports people with an autistic spectrum disorder, there are volunteers who regularly combine the help of the center of the center with the main work - sometimes remaining seven days a week. In addition, they are busy in other charitable projects.

What motivates volunteers to come to the center every week, despite workload at work, how they are saved from emotional burnout and what stereotypes about people with autism disappeared after communicating with the wards? To the anniversary of the Paper Center, along with the program “ Native Cities ” the Gazprom Neft company, spoke with its volunteers and found out how “Anton is nearby influenced them.”

Irina

Hotel administrator

- I knew about the center “Anton here” for a long time: at first I watched [the] film of the same name, and then I followed the news in the group in VKontakte. I wanted to be involved, but there was no way and time.

I worked at the hotel and studied at the restoration college in parallel. In April 2017, I read in the group that a volunteer needed a volunteer in the carpentry workshop. I came to the center for the first time, and all my ideas that [students] are guys who do not want to communicate, that they are closed, immediately collapsed. Because a bunch of people stuck me, they began to ask who I am and why came. And I realized that closed - I, not them.

I came to the workshop at the end of the educational and working year, which lasts until June. After that there was a summer vacation, and in September the festival “Anton is here” was held, where I came again by a volunteer. I was so imbued with all this that I realized: I want to live a full -fledged volunteer year.

From 2017 to 2018, I was a volunteer in a carpentry workshop. And now I have a second [volunteer] year, but already in a sewing workshop.

I work as an administrator of the hotel after a day in three. Most often [shifts] fall on the weekend. It turns out that three weeks a month I don’t have in the center only one day [out of five workers], and one week - two days, because at that time I work in a hotel. In the week I have one day off, rarely two, but then I am lost and do not know what to do. This is already a natural rhythm for me: I am unusual when I am at home.

The sewing workshop is located at the training center for employment - it is one of the most numerous. When I came to the sewing workshop, I had the feeling that students are definitely better sewing than me. Some students graduated from special colleges to prepare children with features and acquired a sewing specialty there. My only experience was that in childhood I sewed my finger with a sewing machine. And then a large order came from the online store, which produces different products. It was necessary to quickly help the masters: sew napkins, bags, baskets and tacks.

A student Ksenia was sewing with me behind the next machine. I understood that I was sewing up and breaking up, because I sewed crookedly - and she sews continuously. Now there is a fourth month [work in the workshop], and the feeling that I also sew, and not just open up. This is a pleasant feeling of their own height.

I am really sincerely amazed at how many students can do, what they have learned and how independent they are professional, although some points, of course, need to be controlled. I want to hope that there is work for them [in the future] or some large orders. After all, students receive a salary for the implementation of these orders, and for them this is also an incentive.

All the time I received the idea that if there were no center, then the student would sit at home and would not be this wonderful product. Last week, a charity fair was held, dedicated to the fifth anniversary of “Anton here is nearby”. It was necessary to see people who came and by the New Year, bought gifts. [At such moments] you understand that everything is not in vain, that this is in demand.

[During volunteering in the center, I realized] that all the guys of the center want to communicate - just not everyone knows how to express it. Not everyone has skills to find a common language with others. When they ask me about what difficulties are, I have only one thought: it is difficult to be simple and understandable. It is difficult to speak little and clearly - not a thousand words per minute, because the guys perceive the information much more slowly, but clearly [say] two words and wait: see the eyes, understand how a person will react to you.

I realized that we live in a frantic rhythm and therefore it is difficult for us to slow down to explain and be clear. This is a skill that I still need to train.

I want to be useful. I had a different experience, I remember my feelings from working in the office: when you turn off the computer in the evening and understand that if electricity is turned off all over the world now, then your work is not in principle. I am pleased to communicate, do something with my own hands in workshops. When I found out at work that I was a volunteer, they asked: "They are there with autism, and how are you with them - not scary, not difficult?" I can say, according to my personal feelings that in the center I am easier and easier for me than in a hotel.

Dmitry

Engineer in Gazprom Neft

- I came to the company three years ago and immediately began to participate in volunteer shares as they load. I participated in promotions where all employees were involved, and implemented my small projects.

To work [in Gazprom Neft] I heard about the center “Anton here is nearby”, but did not know what he was doing. When our company began to cooperate with the center, we were offered as one of the collaboration options for help in workshops in the center on Troitskaya Square. There we create crafts, the money from the sale of which then goes to the center.

For me personally, this was an opportunity to understand what for the diagnosis of such [an autistic spectrum disorder]. Because all that we know about this is from the media, newspapers or rumors. When I got to the center for the first time, I had puzzles. I met in the life of such guys [with Ras] when I was in the camp: I saw my mother with my son, and it was noticeable that he had something wrong with communication. But I did not understand what exactly. I saw that he did not fully realize what was happening, why other guys do not communicate with him.

When I began to communicate with the guys in the center, I saw how they behave, what they were talking about. And I realized that those guys whom I had seen before, perhaps, also had a diagnosis of races, maybe in different forms.

Together with my colleagues, I have been going to the center for two years in a row, when they are invited to us: they send us a schedule when they are waiting for us there.

We have a competition of volunteer projects, in which my colleague launched his project “Divination”: he was aimed at helping the wards “Anton here is nearby”, which are not in the center, but at home and are not very mobile. In such conditions, it is difficult not only for the guys themselves, but also to their relatives: they have practically no free time left. Once every two months we periodically spend time with one of the guys, we take with us for a walk so that at that time his mother can do important things for the family.

At first, when we came to the center [“Anton here is near”], we had a lecture on how to behave, what to say. Of course, it seemed that it was necessary to stand dug as a pillar, not to look anywhere - at first it was scary. We were told how to not do something wrong so that a reaction that we could not cope with.

In fact, everything turned out to be not so scary: there are open guys ready for contact, there are more closed, and they need to communicate with them at the distance that they allow.

I realized that it is impossible to summarize all the guys with races and think that they can be one and something else. In fact, each of them is individual, each has a developed side: someone is strong in music, someone in photography. They have many skills that should be developed, and they will be useful to society.

There is [the ward of the center] Andrei, who comes and actively talks on topics that my colleagues are not always ready to speak: for example, theater and cinema. During the class in the workshop, he could be so carried away by the story of the museum, where he went, that he was no longer important to the cups and circles [at the master class]-he had to correct everything.

Many people have a moment when you pay attention to social injustice. There are few options for the development of events: you can scold the state, or you can become a real member of society, will be happy for your environment and for your city. In my opinion, it should be so: we all must work on society as far as possible.

Two years ago, I did a project for large families: in Gatchina there is a town “Nadezhda”, where large families live, in which there are children and children taken in care. It was a condition [program]: people take children to their family, and they are allowed to live in an organized town on good conditions. There were only Townhai, nearby - forest and fields. We found a fund that works with this town, they also had some kind of idea [its development] (Hope Gorodi has existed since 2009, it was engaged in the Key Foundation. One of the conditions of settlement was the presence in the family of custody orphans-approx. “Paper” ). I interacted with the Today Foundation to organize leisure to these children. We tried to cultivate them a little: they took them to St. Petersburg, organized walks, and a game in Gatchina arranged games, conducted excursions in Kronstadt.

The company [Gazprom Neft] allocates funding for volunteer projects. You draw up a budget for the project, prescribing what money is needed for: for example, the purchase of improvised materials for master classes or fuel payment to go somewhere.

Colleagues asked me what could be done so as not to burn [working as a volunteer]. There must be different roles. If this is not, you still burn out - it doesn’t matter if you are engaged in volunteering or working at the machine. All the time that I was engaged in volunteering, I had different roles. I was the head of the project - then, of course, I was a little tired. After that, I did not implement anything for a year, but simply participated in other projects and charged with energy. If you look for roles by your strength and capabilities, you are unlikely to burn out. Or maybe I am less emotional because I saw how the female colleagues burn out, who perceive everything to heart.

Alexandra

Seller in the confectionery

- I became the volunteer of the Center “Anton here” in 2017. There is a program of the voluntary social year in which I have been participating for the second year. As a volunteer, I accompany the student during the day: for example, I help with something in workshops. This program differs from classical volunteering in that there is a certain schedule: employment in the center is five times a week, from about 10:30 to 16:00. And also we will compensate for the costs of transport and food in the amount of 10 thousand rubles per month.

Initially, I did not plan to be a volunteer: my first interview I went to the post of administrator [Anton here is nearby], but did not pass. Thinking just a couple of hours after the refusal, I called the center about participating in the voluntary social year to become a volunteer.

I began to combine work and volunteering in November 2017. I come to the center from Monday to Friday, but I also work on Saturdays and Sundays by the seller in the confectionery.

This year, fatigue comes faster than in the past: it is difficult to understand now the meaning of my presence in the center, but at the same time I still love the center very much. I try to take the weekend within a week to just relax alone with me. Now it is more difficult to find strength to work in the center, because you need to give a lot, and there is very little time for accumulation [forces]. It is difficult to say about burnout [whether it was], there is no feeling that I got to such an extreme state.

I was interested in with the students of the center from the very first day, and I learned about some of them from the video digers, they can be seen on Utube . In fact, the language of the guys, if desired, can be understood if there is a personal interest in a person, even if he does not use a word when communicating. There is always something special in an unspoken, emotionally felt look, for example, or a gesture. And there is always a feeling that we are more similar than different.

Anna Cheanova

Head of Projects of the Social Investment Program "Native Cities"

- Corporate volunteering is most of the social investment program “Native Cities”. And a very important part of it, because we help people who need us, in our support. And these people, in turn, help us to be kinder, more responsive, teach us to communicate, interact with each other. Those who went through the school of corporate volunteering really fell ill with this, can already be called a real, unified team.