At the World Youth Festival they discussed how volunteers, NGOs and President Vladimir Putin are changing the world
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Participants of the World Youth Festival (WYF), which takes place from March 1 to 7 on the federal territory of Sirius, discussed with the head of the Presidential Council for Human Rights Valery Fadeev how modern civil society works and who should be the leader of social change. The moderator, General Director of the VTsIOM Foundation Konstantin Abramov, eventually found the answer to the last question: he named Vladimir Putin as one of the main leaders of social and other “incredible” changes. And Mr. Fadeev recalled that the Russian Constitution “allows not only protests and rallies, but also work together with government agencies, which is much more effective.”
Monday at WFM was dedicated to the theme “A World of Opportunities for Everyone.” In particular, the discussion “The Power of Civil Society: How Do Social Change Leaders Change the World?” moderated by General Director of the VTsIOM Foundation Konstantin Abramov. He immediately cooled down the hottest heads, noting that “many people want to change the world, but only 5–7% are really capable of doing this.” The speakers decided to focus mainly on volunteering.
Let us note that the organizers of the festival attach great importance to the topic of volunteering, including the most practical: at least 5 thousand volunteers help participants at Sirius. Each of them underwent selection and training, which began almost a year before the WFM. The volunteers with whom the Kommersant correspondent managed to talk mostly answered that they saw this as a chance to get to the festival themselves. At the same time, some had to close their university practice, while others were not old enough to become a participant (the age of participants was determined from 18 to 35). Everyone was attracted by the proximity of Sirius to the sea and the opportunity to communicate with new people from different countries.
“Ten years ago, according to federal surveys, only 2% of Russians were involved in volunteer activities, but now this figure is already 28%,” said Kirill Antonov, executive director of the association of volunteer centers. “And 54% would like to be involved: we need to reduce this difference . Russia is the only country in the world where volunteerism is included in the Constitution (as amended in 2020, Article 157 of the Basic Law states that the government implements measures to support volunteer activities.— “Kommersant”). Three quarters of Russians want their children to be volunteers, 97% report that they trust volunteers, all this shows that our activities are not in vain.”
Member of the State Duma Committee on Social Policy Ekaterina Stenyakina (ER) noted that deputies “are constantly working to improve the law in the field of volunteering” because “the state cannot come to the aid of everyone and often does not even know that someone needs help, and grassroots initiatives can open our eyes.” Thus, the discussion symbolically returned to the times of the early 2000s, when one of the leading ideologists of the Russian administration at that time, Gleb Pavlovsky, gathered civil forums in Moscow and Sochi, at which cooperation between the state and the so-called third sector, that is, NGOs, was enthusiastically discussed. The circumstances and composition of the participants were, of course, different this time: a lot has changed. Ms. Stenyakina, for example, recalled the federal budget, which takes into account the increase in spending on volunteering, the exemption of grants to individuals from personal income tax, the life insurance of volunteers and the work on the bill on corporate volunteering (adopted in the first reading in October last year). “Deputies are also volunteers, but we have a little more opportunities,” Mrs. Stenyakina looked at her colleagues from a non-trivial angle. To this, Mr. Abramov quite seriously noted that today “a whole troop of volunteers landed in the State Duma.”
AiF brand director Elena Mullanurova insisted that NGO leaders need expertise, and sometimes just the help of journalists and PR specialists: “The level of trust in such organizations depends on recognition, so it is necessary to cover their activities in the media and invite them to television. But they themselves often don’t know how to present themselves; the media should advise them and create the correct image of a leader of social change.”
The head of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC), Valery Fadeev, noted that “there are different leaders of social change”: “Lenin, Che Guevara is also among them. But our country will not survive another revolution. We are now talking about a different type, when civil initiatives become state policy, and do not act against it… It is important to want to help selflessly and to do this at the call of the soul. Those who really make social changes don’t need PR instructions; they don’t push their merits.” In Russia, the head of the Human Rights Council noted, there is constant work on the humanization of society: “For example, we are humanizing our criminal legislation, because some articles are too harsh, we are doing a lot of work to ease non-violent articles (we are talking about criminal penalties for non-violent crimes.— “Kommersant”)”. Mr. Fadeev, apparently, wanted to emphasize that there are NGOs that work on useful social changes, and in Russia they are always met halfway, and there are other NGOs whose position is unconstructive, so they may face a reaction from law enforcement officials, albeit constantly humanized . It is important, says Valery Fadeev, not to forget that “the Constitution allows not only protests and rallies, but also work together with government agencies, which is much more effective.”
Valery Fadeev explained to a Kommersant correspondent that cooperation with the state for NGOs is always a compromise that must be made “if you want to get funding.” “For the sake of sponsorship, the same environmental activists previously collaborated with now-banned international organizations, but now the state can provide assistance to them, according to its own rules,” the head of the HRC gave an example. In his opinion, “the close attention of government agencies” does not in any way contradict the very idea of grassroots initiatives, and “everyone can quietly do good deeds without notifying others about it.”
The main leader both in terms of social change and in the matter of volunteerism remains, according to Konstantin Abramov, “our President Vladimir Putin”: “He does much more things than his position requires, and incredible changes are taking place in the world.”
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