Teenagers in Kandalaksha, a small village located above the Arctic Circle in the Murmansk Region, have effectively mobilized their community to remove a serious health hazard in their town. Local young people, working with community leaders, were able to convince the government to tear down dangerous abandoned buildings thanks to the USAID-funded Youth Development Competencies Program (YDCP).
They say if you don’t take action, nothing will change. That’s why we started this project. We want young people to be listened to and we want our city’s problems to be solved.-Alexei Brytov, 16, a community school participant from Kandalaksha |
In the Murmansk Region, YDCP, as implemented by IREX, utilizes the community schools approach to set up civic action centers at local schools. Students, teachers and administrators receive training in needs assessment, project management, fundraising and social marketing, design. They then design and implement projects that both benefit their community, and enable the participating young people to develop the skills they will need to become successful adults. The students are often able to bring attention to issues which, although overlooked by the adults in the community, are vital to the well being of local youth.
In all of these projects, school children, teachers and community members work together to solve a local issue. Using the skills they learned at the community school, they promote their cause among the general population. The project “Fragments of the Past” in Kandalaksha is a classic example of how a community school becomes a focus for positive action in its neighborhood.
Many of the old, abandoned buildings in Kandalaksha are infested with disease-carrying rats. Numerous children have been bitten, and almost all are afraid to go anywhere near the area, greatly limiting the places they can play in the small town. Students involved in the community school decided to do something about the problem. They first held a drawing contest, encouraging kids to create warning signs about the dangers of the buildings. The pictures were posted on the walls of the hazardous structures, and with the help of the local paper, a publicity campaign was initiated. The children handed out leaflets, and collected signatures demanding that these buildings be torn down. Finally with tremendous effort and persistence, a meeting was arranged with the local government. Deputies of the local Duma became involved in the case, and two of the buildings have been torn down, with plans to demolish others in the future. The school project team is now helping to clean up the area, which they will turn into a playground for local children.
In the project, the school acted as a locus for social activity. The energy and activity of the children, assisted by their teachers and the local press, raised awareness of a serious social problem, and eventually resulted in a safer place for the community’s children.
"The most important thing that a person has is his health and we want to walk the streets of our town without looking back and to be able to feel safe. That is why we declare: There will be no unsafe places in our city!"
-A slogan from a leaflet used in the campaign raising awareness about the abandoned buildings