Letter to the Russian President Vladimir Putin

By Viktor Voronov, Vice-President of the Rescuer's School and Elena Zigareva.
Published (in Russian only) on http://altruism.ru/sengine.cgi/5/26/5.
Sent to President of the Russian Federation Mr. V. Putin at president@kremlin.ru on February 02, 2002.
Copies to: the press, government agencies, social organizations, private entities. Free distribution is encouraged - once you have read the letter, please pass it on.

Don't Fight the Homeless Children Problem!
(A message to the President of Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir V. Putin)

In the Russian navy there is such an order: All Quickly!

Mr. President:

Suddenly, probably following your orders, homeless children have become a hot topic at all levels of the Russian government.

We believe YOU.

Despite the fact that the city of St. Petersburg in the mid-1990s had the highest rates of homeless children in the country. It would have been impossible for you not to have seen or heard about the problem. We doubt that homeless children are a new issue for you.

You may also be aware of how many children perished in the frosts this winter, how many of them are slaving for pimps and drug dealers, how many of them are forced to work on the tomato and poppy fields... as well as many other things.

Nevertheless, we believe YOU.

However, we do not believe the people in your administration of "All Quickly!". They are, in most part, the same crowd as your predecessor's. The same familiar faces: Mrs. Matvienko, Mrs. Lakhiova... and so on down the ladder.

We know there will be more initiatives like the "Children of Russia." A series of multi-agency meetings and conference calls. Thoughtful seminars and conferences on fighting the problem of homeless children with beautiful banquets at the end.

Dozens more of doomed-from-the-beginning task forces and programs will be created. Some of them might even be financed - at least to the extent of paying the consultants and staff involved.

But the children will never get a penny.

The organizations that work with the children will receive money in a somewhat peculiar manner, such as damaged cars with a price tag over twice the market value, rooms three times their going rate, computer classrooms with equipment which elicits healthy laughter from the young users. Their laughter turns into a groan once they find out how much it had cost.

We went through all this in the 1990s.

Back them, there were a few attempts to fight homeless children problem as well.

But we still believe you.

We believe that you understand what is the most important - that homeless children are not a cause, but a consequence. Without eradicating the cause of a problem, fighting the consequences is a hopeless exercise (however profitable it may be for an official, to whom a hopeless and lengthy program is a more lucrative one).

Consider one more thing: as strange and awful as it sounds, homeless children don't need help anymore. They have everything they need to sustain their lifestyle: cigarettes-beer-vodka, pot-coke-heroin, money from ten to five hundred or more a day, free choice of clothing from the second hand stores and peers, and most importantly, an absence of all the necessary responsibilities. FREEDOM. An ability to do anything.

There are plenty shelters at night - hot water pipes, attics, basements. More often homeless children rent rooms or apartments from alcoholics.

Given all this, getting a hardened homeless child off the street must be either forced, which only proves to be temporary, or has to offer a better alternative than can be found quickly.

But if these children cannot be returned (although the existing homeless children population can be stabilized by returning Criminal Youth Temporary Detention Center the authority to take in children, since experts are still left in the police), its not too late to prevent a new generation from being let out into the street.

Back in the 1990s, a group of teachers tried to convince the officials to spend money on PREVENTION of homeless children. They suggested targeting the primary preventative efforts at children aged 8 through 12. If this was done, the plight of the current 14-16 year olds would have looked very different.

Because prevention is eradication of causes.

And there are not that many causes.

First: the schools as a social institution is not just in crisis - they seized to exist.

Children hate school. School hates children.

It makes children run away.

Only one reform may help schools - a radical reform. A reform of teacher's salary.

The salary must be raised minimum by ten-fold. The more, the better.

The teachers salary, even after all your promises to raise it, amounts to less than half of the real subsistence minimum.

Teachers have to work two or three shifts. They are not able to do their work properly.

None of the manufacturing businesses have workers doing two shifts - it would lead to defected product and waste.

But defects in work of a turner are visible at once.

The defects in the teacher's profession are visible in the homeless children. Its impossible to pinpoint the guilty party. The whole education system is guilty. As if any given teacher is not.

Give every teacher an opportunity to work and to work properly.

ONE SHIFT. At least 8 or 9 thousand roubles.

The strong teachers will return to the schools. The first ones to leave were those who couldn't stand not being able to do their job properly.

One more thing, Mr. President, do not cut the number of teachers during the current demographic downturn. Let there be 10-12 children in the classroom instead of the usual 25-30. Don't cut the number of teachers. Later, when EVERYBODY comes to learn, but there will be NOBODY to teach them. The current homeless children will seem a small problem in comparison.

The second cause of homelessness for children are the state orphanages. The majority of the homeless children are registered with some orphanage. The rest most likely have a court order pending somewhere to determine the child's status (rescind parental rights) and be placed into an orphanage.

The children run from orphanages. They don't like it there.

Harassment? Yes, they are harassed. Most often by fellow children. Sometimes by adults.

Ugly clothing? No, they are dressed well, with rare exceptions. But the kids don't like this clothing, its not theirs. They didn't choose it, and have to wear what was given. These clothes are not what they wanted and, in turn, are not valued.

Bad food? No, this is a rare exception these days. Children are fed well. The food is tasty. But the choice isn't theirs, they eat what was given, however tasty and nutritious it might be.

Housing crunch is everywhere. A separate room for two is a true rarity. The majority of accommodations are hostel style. Same with older and younger children.

Most importantly, the children do not belong to anybody.

How could it be any different? With all the truly kind people who have stuck with the system, the salary of an orphanage worker is less than the food cost for one of the orphans.

Government, what are you doing?

How can a worker feed and clothe himself/herself and his/her family on this salary?

Mr. President, this is the standard phrase of am orphanage worker who welcomes back a run away child: "What more can you want, you eat here better than we do at home!"

Which can only serve as an incentive to run away again.

The government always had a hard time with orphanages. Ever since 1918, the government has viewed orphanages, as well as orphans, as a temporary phenomena.

Slogans, one after another, kept postponing reform of the orphanages: "Once we win the war...", "Once we build socialism...", "Once we eradicate all the internal enemies...", "Once we rebuild everything destroyed by the war...", "Once we build communism...", "Once we complete perestroika..."

The slogan now, if it isn't "Once we eliminate the orphanage system...", is "Once we establish a system for adopted and foster families." There might still be orphans and homeless children, but orphanages will no longer be needed.

So once again, the system is being viewed as temporary.

In the eighty plus years of the communist rule, no college or university had courses to prepare an orphanage educator. There were also no courses offered to prepare psychologists, and continuing education providers, etc.

As if those professions did not exist. Since orphanages are going to be closed soon anyway, why spend the money?

Mr. President, your own program "Children of Russia" has recently published a weighty volume containing laws that govern the work of state orphanages.

It is impossible to get through the myriads of these laws, amendments and instructions without a very good lawyer.

Mr. President, please initiate passing of a single straightforward law governing the Orphanages, for the first time in history admitting their existence. Acknowledge that they are here to stay, at least in the near future.

Make this a good and functional law. In it, include the minimal care requirements for each child and minimum requirements for staff that work with these children, without limiting the maximum requirements.

Only then it will be possible to turn orphanages-incubators into true CHILDREN'S HOMES, places, that both children and staff enjoy.

A place from which children will not run away.

The few good orphanages that currently exist became so despite the government and not because of it.

This results in the life expectancy of UNDER THIRTY for an average orphanage graduate. This is not the official, but the real piece of data. Your former colleagues will have no trouble checking the statistic.

Does this bother you, Mr. President?

Third: the problems with physical exercise and sports.

A family is the most important factor in creating the homeless children. Family's problems are easily solved. Acceptable standard of living in a comfortable place to live strengthens families for the long term. If the family is below the poverty line, its does not even make sense to talk about a strong family. There is no time to care for the children. Survival is the most important.

You already know everything about physical exercise and sports.

But the absence of well-funded non-ideological children's organizations and clubs is a problem.

Believe me, if twenty and thirty-year-olds come to work in the schools, which with acceptable salary levels they are definitely bound to do, the children's organizations and clubs will appear without any extra spending.

They will appear.

They even exist right now. But again, despite the government efforts, not because of them.

Different clubs exist even now. Most of them good.

Its very easy, Mr. President.

We are hoping that you will not ask where to get the money for this reform. Don't pretend you don't know.

Because you know that there is money in Russia. Mostly not in the government though. But the government finds the money for buying TV stations, and aluminum and nickel giants. It also finds the money for luxury houses, super cottages, Mercedes cars fleet, and even the war!

Give this money back to the children! Its their money! It's the money of their degraded parents. The government has first degraded them, then denied them the parental rights. And now its being amazed that we have orphans while their parents are still alive.

If you decide to fight the homeless children problem without addressing its causes, we will have no winners.

Everyone will lose.

The homeless children of the 1990's are now over twenty. Part of them has grown up.

Part of the current ones will grow up as well.

And they will trample down the government and not notice. To them, it doesn't exist, just like they didn't exist for the government.

They didn't have anything to do with it, just like the government didn't want anything to do with them.

There will be no winners, Mr. President.

Nevertheless, we still believe YOU.

We are offering you a national idea. An idea of TAKING CARE OF CHILDHOOD.

And we are offering to help you.

Victor Voronov, teacher, winner of the "Blagorodstvo" award by Radio Nostalgie Samara for his work with homeless children.

Elena Zigareva, Psychologist, member of international art-therapeutic association.

Samara, February 1st, 2002