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SPIRAL in Russia

The ideas of social cohesion are very close to the Russian culture and the present day Russian collective mentalities. The tradition of strong non-formal ties and mutual support is according to Alena Ledeneva (1998) deeply rooted within the Russian culture, what confirms the criteria data base of municipal ditricts of Ulyanovsk Region.

After the phase of complete rejection of the “Soviet” values Russia is starting to rethink them. The active participation of the citizens in the social life is one of the values the present day Russian society is trying to restore.

All this has contributed a lot to the active cooperation of Russia in the European Social Cohesion Action Plan and implementation of SPIRAL Methodology.

In April 2012 Russian Federation has started to cooperate on Social Cohesion Action Plan with Council of Europe. As pilot territories 6 municipal districts of Ulyanovsk Region (Melekes, Dimitrovograd, Karsun, Ulyanovsk District, Ulyanovsk city and Staromain) have been chosen. At a moment all 23 municipal districts of Ulyanovsk Region are participating in the project.The strengthening of social cohesion is oneof the guidelines of the development of the region. The accent has been made on the work with the less protected strata of society. The primary database (s. statistics) consisting of over 7000 criteria collected from ca. 300 homogeneous groups (for more – see wikispiral.org) shows the main problems of these groups of population. There had been decided to center on such problems as exclusion, neglect and abandon of the elderly generation, unhealthy way of life, generation gap, lack of common actions for the families, youth and kids, not sufficient cultural level, loss of own historical roots, social abandon of children, especially from the groups of risk. Here are the examples of the actions, conducted in different municipal districts.

Karsun

Tasks of the Action Plan

Avoiding exclusion of elderly people
Overcoming generation gap
Education of youth

Forms of Work:

Social history projects:The pupils from all educational establishments of the municipal district collected information about the experiences of the citizens from their settlements during the Second World war, about “children of the war” – those who had been kids as the war began, about the military hospitals' in the settlements. The meetings with such citizens have been organized. As a result several books of recollections have been created; the books are in the regional museum.More see under http://www.karsunmo.ru/.
Getting together:Special events for the elderly people as well as street festivals where all citizens living in one street meet, recollect the former life and those who lived there before are organized;

Staraya Maina

Tasks of the Action Plan

Supporting families in disadvantageous situation

Forms of Work:

Events for children and families
Common actions for the parents and kids.

Examples of Actions

The parents with children have created together a calendar, where they explain, what their favorite day of the year is and why (s. foto).

Novoulyanovsk

Tasks of the Action Plan

envolving youth into the life of community
overcoming generation gap
to encourage population to healthy way of life
to improve the general level of culture
to support the elderly people

# to take care about the nature

Forms of work

sport events for the youth
sport flash mobs (gymnastics) ecological movement

#aid to the elderly citizens ("TIMUROVTSY")

actions to encourage to healthy way of life and rejection of asocial behavior

Examples of actions

“Chocolate instead of cigarettes” (“Меняем сигареты на конфеты”)'' – the young people throw away their cigarettes and get chocolate for this.
“Look at you”'' – the pictures of asocial actions are taken, like smoking at children playing grounds, getting drunk, vandalism etc. The trailer is made, where these episodes are contrasted by the pictures of healthy way of life, adequate forms of leisure etc.
Support to elderly citizens: The youth systematically helps the elderly citizens about the house.
"Cleaning the abandoned places, ecological movement:'' The youth has cleaned and restored the old chapel with the source of water near the town. Also the abandoned parks, forests are cleaned by the youth.

Ulyanovsk

Tasks of the Action Plan

to support children and youth from the risk groups
to prevent their marginalization

Forms of work

cooperation between the students and social services by helping the “problem” kids and teenagers.

Examples of actions

The students of the Ulyanovsk State School for Civil Aviation support kids and youth from the groups of risk (from problem families, those who have problems with police or at school etc.): different actions, sport trainings, support by making home tasks, pure friendship, positive example