Local advisory council

Project description

In Yaroslavl, Friends of Russian Orphans is represented by our legal Russian counterpart, "YARBOO Friends of Russian Orphans." Originally established to provide a safe conduit through which FRO-USA could distribute funds to good causes, YARBOO has expanded its scope to become a vital advisory and decisionmaking asset in the conduct of FRO's activities.

The long-term vision for YARBOO is to expand the group and allow it to become an organization independent of FRO-USA sometime in the future. To make this vision become reality, an active and responsible Board of Directors will need to oversee the organization's activities. We have established the YARBOO Advisory Council as a prototype of the future Board of Directors that will govern the all-Russian YARBOO.

This group currently consists of approximately 10 local orphanage directors, business people and academic leaders -- and even a young small-business entrepreneur who is a "graduate" of a Yaroslavl orphanage. (Click here to read more about the Council members.)

Rationale

In the view of Friends of Russian Orphans, local involvement in the orphans' cause is essential for the long-term success of programs in which Russian orphans benefit. We at FRO believe that our deepest impact may someday be measured by how much we've empowered the local Yaroslavl population to take up the cause of their orphans. From our inception, we have strived to not just include Yaroslavl citizens in our programs, but also to insist on a proactive partnership in which they make decisions in FRO's name based upon their own experience and judgment.

Helping foster local ownership of the orphan situation is not something we expect will come easily; the existing orphanage system in Russia was inspired and is still sustained by the Soviet philosophy that suggests the state will provide for all. Our hope is that the Advisory Council's active and very public involvement on behalf of the orphans will help Yaroslavl residents begin to see the moral and ethical necessity of individual care over collective organization.

Lastly, FRO-USA realizes that its role in Yaroslavl will always be that of a foreign charity; while helpful in providing funds and guidance, our continual presence will not help the Yaroslavl people take full control over the destiny of its orphans. By establishing and supporting the eventual independence of the Advisory Council, we hope to contribute to a trend in which foreign charities, in the words of Andrei Kortunov of the Eurasia Foundation, "[encourage] nascent local corporate charities to establish themselves in the field and to develop proper technical skills and institutional capacity."

Project cost

In 2003, Friends of Russian Orphans supplied the Advisory Council with a small amount of funds ($5,000) so they could respond to immediate and inexpensive needs such as emergency prescriptions and art supplies, as well as to cover a shortfall in schoolbooks. Members of the group made formal proposals for the use of these funds, and the entire group then voted on the proposals. At the conclusion of the voting process, the Advisory Council delivered their recommendations to YARBOO Vice President Svetlana Bayumova, who made the suggested purchases. This process was so successful in helping the children that FRO will continue funding the Advisory Council in this manner on an annual basis. (In 2004, FRO allocated $7,000 to the Advisory Council.)

Project status

The Advisory Council was established in mid-2003, and it has met regularly ever since to discuss issues relating to FRO's projects and to organize FRO-sponsored activities for the city's orphans. These meetings have resulted in one of the happiest side effects of the YARBOO Advisory Council: there has been a clear reduction in competition among the city's orphanages. Prior to the establishment of the Advisory Council, the five orphanages were often at odds in their scramble for government funds and aid from Friends of Russian Orphans. In the new environment of cooperation fostered by the we're-all-in-this-together spirit of the Advisory Council, however, the individual homes are working together to help all the orphaned children of the city equally.

Specific accomplishments in the Advisory Council's existence include:

• Adopting democratic, transparent protocols and business practices, including parliamentary procedure, decision by majority vote and taking of accurate minutes;
• Lobbying successfully with the Department of Housing to protect orphanage graduates' rights to proper housing;
• Raising local funds and soliciting volunteers to examine orphans' eyesight and to purchase corrective lenses for all those in need;
• Negotiating with the Department of Professional Vocational Education to provide dormitory accommodations and supervision for orphans to study at certain vocational schools distant from their orphanage homes;
• Increasing public awareness of the value and needs of Yaroslavl orphans and the work and activities of FRO through billboards, newspaper articles and radio and television interviews and feature broadcasts;
• Producing and sponsoring a two-week all-orphanage Arts Festival in a central museum, in which more than 300 children exhibited their art and performed for more than 1,000 visitors;
• Initiating a one-year pilot program (now a formal program sponsored by FRO) to counsel and support recently graduated orphans.

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