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For these displaced children, the summer camps offer a chance to forget their troubles (p5486). |
Russia's summer camps cheer up kids
20 July 2000 13-year-old Timur saw his mother blown up in front of him by a bomb in Chechnya five years ago. Evgeny, aged 10, misses his old home in Kazakhstan that his family felt compelled to leave. Like many of the children attending summer camps run by the Russian Red Cross, their childhood has been traumatic. The camps aim to give these children a chance to forget abut their families' troubles, and have some fun for a few weeks. |
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| The Russian Red Cross is organising the camps for displaced and refugee children from former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine and from Chechnya. The first camp this year is being run near Mtzensk, in Oryol region. Called "Believe in yourself", it is taking care of 200 children, half of them child-migrants and half of them local children from vulnerable families. | |||||||||||||||
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"I
love it here," says 12-year-old Masha Stepenko, whose parents came
to Russia from Ukraine in search of work. "We get food five times
a day," she wrote to her mother, "and they give us juice, fruit, chocolate,
yogurt and sweets. I miss you all, but honestly I don't want to go
home. And here we spend all day playing." Three psychologists and eight group leaders have constructed a full programme for the children "to protect them from their memories and develop a good feeling for life." There are four basic types of activities in the camp: "Soul ecology" is a series of psychological consultations to develop children's communication skills, help to solve their personal problems and decrease the level of tenseness and disquiet among them. Seminars called "Take care of yourself" inform the children about the dangers of drug addiction and teach them about how HIV/AIDS is transmitted and how to protect themselves. "Parents' Club" sessions aim to harmonise family relations through a series of psychological workshops for children and their parents, while the fourth activity, Red Cross seminars, acquaint the children with the history of the Red Cross Movement, the basis of international humanitarian law and teach them first aid skills. "What is most important for us is the twinkle in their eyes," says Valery Burkovsky, the Oryol city Red Cross committee chairman and one of the organisers of the summer camp. "They have a dim, even dead look when they first get here. And we try to give them a glimpse of the childhood they lost because of the social and political problems in this country." Timur Nikoluyev's family were ethnic Russians, who lived in a large two-storey house with a garden in Grozny. During the first Chechen war in 1994-95 they lost all their possessions and in one night turned from "respectable citizens to enemies," according to Timur. They acquired official 'forced migrant' status in 1997 but became virtual nomads, moving from place to place "to find peace and comfort". Ironically, for a young boy uprooted by war, Timur says he wants to join the army when he's older. "I want to visit my mum's grave in Grozny and the only way to get there is to be a soldier," he says." Evgeny Bildukevich, 10, moved with his family to the village of Maslovo in Oryol from Kazakhstan in 1999. "The Kazakh-speaking people didn't even sell us bread in the shops," he says, "pretending they didn't understand us. I want to go back to my grandma and friends, but we don't have our house anymore," Evgeny says, sitting on the edge of his bed choking back tears. Evgeny's family are among the ethnic Russians who felt compelled to leave former Soviet republics over the past decade because of the promotion of local languages – a process officially referred to by Moscow as "language displacement". One of the aims of the Oryol camp is to adapt the child-migrants to local culture and help them communicate with local children. The organisers are planning excursions to nearby places of interest – including one to the estate of the 19th century writer Turgenev. The Oryol camp is one of five camps taking place in July and August under the Federation-supported Russian Red Cross Population Movement programme. Other camps for some 800 vulnerable children, most of them migrants, are planned in Pskov, Ivanovo, Vologda and St. Petersburg. |
Timur Nikoluyev, an ethnic Russian from Chechnya (p5488).  Camp children enjoy Petrov night - Oroyl's equivalent of Halloween festival (p5487). |
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