Three volunteer projects

This year, Gazprom Neft received several awards of the Leaders of Corporate Charity. This is the most authoritative in Russia competition in the field of social investment. Gazprom Neft and its " native cities " program led a general rating of socially responsible companies, were the first in the nomination "For the approach to evaluating corporate volunteering programs."

Gazprom Neft annually holds a volunteer competition among its employees - each of them can offer an idea, the implementation of which will solve the problem that is relevant for the city. Approved projects receive resource and expert support.

How do Petersburgers carry out shares on the restoration of ceremonial, who puts performances with residents of the neuropsychiatric boarding school in Peterhof and how can shelters for animals be helped except feed and medicines?

“Paper” talked with three Gazprom Neft employees, who, with the support of the “Native Cities” program, launched their volunteer projects: “Time of Fronts”, “The Art of being Self” and “A brilliant nose”. They tell whether it is difficult to get permission to work in historical buildings, why are creative workshops and how to look for volunteers to help dogs with features of development.

Ksenia smooth

The head of the project "Time of ceremonial"

-For some time I was signed on Instagram Maxim Kosmin (Maxim’s account was dedicated to St. Petersburg apartments, he has more than 199 thousand subscribers-approx. “Papers” ), and then signed up for Ksyusha (Ksenia Sidorina, co-organizer of the St. Petersburg association “Gangon” and the Kraikon festival-approx. “Paper” ), which leads an interesting blog about Tiles. Once she wrote that on Sovetskaya Street there is a tile furnace that is in very poor condition - in spray of paint, klee. Ksyusha invited the subscribers to gather and remove all the dirt from the furnace. I decided to go.

Then I was not personally familiar with either Ksyusha or other guys [from the Association of Ganging]. But after reading the call to clear the stove, I thought that a volunteer project could be made of this. At the meeting, I told the local historians about this-they also agreed, because they wanted to continue to hold actions to restore architectural details in St. Petersburg ceremonial. So we united. The project was approved by Gazprom Neft, and this year we embodied it.

Our shares were held once a month on Sundays. Participants were searched through the social networks of local historians, I also posted announcements on our internal resource in the company. At some point, a group of volunteers appeared who participated in most actions, and we had friendly relations with some of them.

The main subtlety inherent in St. Petersburg is the status of houses. To organize a promotion on clearing or cleaning in an ordinary house without status, it is enough to enlist the support of residents or management company. But, of course, we interact with the residents most on promotions. There were even cases when they joined us.

Of course, people are different: some reacted strangely, but most often the residents were satisfied and grateful for our work. In the summer, one woman took us a plate of fried potatoes, and during the last rally a resident of the house in which we worked, gave us sweets - and it was clear that she specially went to the store for them. We ourselves always have food and water, but, apparently, so people express their gratitude.

Most often, we chose objects that are in very poor condition, where we could use a lot of people and show a good result. Before the start of the project, we did not clearly know all the objects on which we would work. Most often, the addresses were prompted by my local historians.

We had two objects that have the status of monuments - for work on them we received permission from Kgiop and invited restorers with licenses. Although we also invite specialists in restoration work to ordinary promotions.

We have a permanent restorer who advises us and helps if something is incomprehensible. When we were engaged in stained-glass windows, we called a specialist who conducted a master class on working with them for us.

At the last promotion on December 15, we laundered tiles in the Lyubishchev’s profitable house on Petrogradskaya embankment. We worked for about five hours. First, layers of water -based paint were laundered, then oil. The final layer had to be rubbed with acetone. As a result, we decided to get together again and finish work in a week.

In total, since May we have held eight joint stocks and next year we want to continue this project.

How corporate volunteering in Russia is developing

• Education. Companies organize for activists educational programs for social design, communications, attracting partners and additional financing. As a result, prepared volunteers implement effective projects.

• IT solutions. More and more network and Internet sites appear, where volunteers talk about promotions, coordinate actions, attract new participants and report on the results of their work.

• Volunteering in Pro-Bono format-using their professional knowledge and experience. More and more experts and experts help people with disabilities, children from shelters and other socially vulnerable groups of the population.

• Growth in the number of participants. According to the National Council for Corporate Volunteering, 15 % of Russians are already participating in volunteer activities, and 50 % of our compatriots are ready to regularly devote time to social work.

Grigory Ogibin

Organizer of the festivals "The art of being yourself" and "The art of being yourself 2.0"

- Our festival “The Art of being himself” won several times in the Volunteer Competition “Gazprom Neft”, we will organize it along with the Prospects Foundation and the guys from the neuropsychiatric boarding school in Peterhof (PNI No. 3, since 2000, “Prospects” implement the “Adults outside of the family” - approx. “Papers” ).

I decided to do this project, firstly, because I was interested in trying and seeing how such events work from the inside. And secondly, my wife has been engaged in such activities for a long time: she worked with the Zelenogorsk children's neuropsychiatric boarding school and organizes a charity flea market on Facebook. She is given good things to people who are tired of, she sells them, and sends money to charity.

The “prospects” organize workshops for the residents of the boarding school - by ceramics, painting, electronic music - where the guys create just incredible works. People who live in this boarding school are not very socially adapted, but are open to art. This is their world. In addition to the workshops, they have a theater studio, which is led by Elena Schiffer (actress, teacher and director of the “Theater without Borders” - approx. “Paper” ). She has been working in this studio for 16 years, and the guys under her leadership staged performances.

We decided that we would organize a festival, the center of which will be a performance, and the company's volunteers will connect and conduct workshops for children from a boarding school. So we started going to Peterhof, invent the plot and rehearse. The result was a 30-minute, emotionally-saturated and interesting performance.

The topic was invented by one of the guys, Ilgar. This is a performance that art for people from a boarding school is essentially their life road, exit. In addition, in the creative process, all the differences between people go into the background. Usually they look at such guys with pity, and here simple human relations arise. The performance is called "Artificial Channel."

The first festival "The Art of being himself" was held in 2017. The premises for us was provided for free by the Any Day restaurant. We brought the guys from the boarding school there, called friends, colleagues, relatives. Organized, as a result, a flea market, and auction of several paintings, and a performance. It turned out bright and touching.

After that, we continued to go to the boarding school and the next year we decided to repeat everything. The festival was called "The Art of being 2.0" and took place in Okhta Lab. We staged another performance there, which was dedicated to the ratio of theater and life, and organized a 3D photocon with imaginary planets with Videofabrika, created based on the work of children from the boarding school.

I am grateful to the Prospect Foundation, which gives the guys the opportunity to create. It seems to me that this is the most important thing. Thus, we draw attention to this problem. It is customary to equalize people with disabilities in boarding schools - all under one comb. Although people live there who cannot follow themselves at all, and those who, although limited, are able to live more or less familiar to us. It seems important to me to draw attention to this topic: next to us are completely beautiful people, and we have a connection with them.

Now we are preparing to hold a larger event. Moreover, more and more volunteers want to take part in this. About 10-12 people worked at the past festivals in the main volunteer group, another 15 people were employed in the workshops. 50–70 people came to our events - I also consider them volunteers, as they supported our business.

Dmitry Buslovich

The head of the volunteer projects "Leather Nose" and "Brilliant Dog"

- I first took part in the volunteer project when I was a student and studied at the University of Railways. The Fifth Canal had a New Year's action, and we raised funds for gifts to children. It all started with this.

Later, when I got a job at Gazprom Neft in 2015, I began to participate in the volunteer promotions and projects of my colleagues. But then I wanted to realize something of my own-to see how it works at all. Together with the Foundation Today, we made a project for children in the family town "Nadezhda", which is located near Gatchina. Long families live there, who have their own children and children on guardianship. They are given a house in the settlement, but it is far enough from the city and nothing but other houses in this village. Therefore, the Charitable Foundation "Today" had the idea to organize an excursion to the city for children.

We managed to hold three events for children with colleagues and friends. At first we thought that we would almost every week go to this village and tell the children about architecture and culture, but it turned out that the most difficult thing was to gather everyone together. It was summer, vacation: someone could not one day, someone in another. As a result, we went on excursions to Gatchina and Kronstadt and organized a quest on Petrogradka. This project was designed for a year and has already ended.

In 2018, I began to engage in animal help. In the shelter "Rzhevka" we got, in fact, by chance. Representatives of the shelter came to us at one of the seminars in the company, talked about their needs and invited us. Then I first realized that in general there is such a shelter for animals. Such institutions are given very little attention. But, oddly enough, more people responded to participate in this project than when I took events for children.

For myself, I explain this like this: many people help people - both sympathetic and the state to one degree or another - and almost no one for animals. At the same time, people create the problem.

The shelter "Rzhevka" is one of the few where the volunteers work. But in order to attract them, it was necessary to conduct some projects there, to talk about the shelter as much as possible. Well, and I somehow got involved. Thanks to this project, I fell in love with dogs, although I used to love cats before.

The “Leather Nose” was the first joint project with the Rzhevka shelter. When we started working, the shelter had a murdered territory and the dog’s walking always occurred behind it. But it was dangerous enough to walk there - especially people who do not know how to handle dogs, because the animal could tear and run away. We decided to organize a site on the territory of the shelter where you can walk the dogs.

The project was designed for a year, about 18 people were engaged in it. Usually, the volunteers of the center and the people who came there joined the work. The main construction was in the summer. Now there is no end to this action: we started from the site, and now the company's volunteers are constantly going to the shelter, walking dogs, feed, wash, take it to the veterinarian, that is, they are already engaged in the main routine work of Rzhevka volunteers.

After we built the site, it became possible to attract more funds to this project. The director and I revised the needs, and it turned out that one of the problems was washing dogs and hygiene. It will not work to wash the dogs from the hose - they run away. And in order to cut them, it used to be necessary to negotiate with the salons: some were ready to do it for free, but for this it was necessary to find a volunteer, put the dog in the car and take it there - but the dogs in the shelter are 150, you can’t turn each. Now in the shelter there are sinks and groomers who come and cut down and bathing dogs for free.

I haven’t taken a dog for myself yet, but now I am smoking one dog: I am looking for new owners to her. The previous housewife refused her. When she took this dog, she was told that she would be small, and she grew up, and it turned out that the hostess physically could not take care of her. Now the dog lives with her at home, but the neighbors and I take turns walking her, we make sure that she has water and food, carry to the veterinarian. I can’t say that now she lives very well, but still better than in the shelter. There, no one will do it separately there and it will be more difficult to find new owners.