• Participants from children's committees created volunteer units in such towns as Nikolaev, Achinsk, Krasnoyarsk, Novokuznetsk, Bratsk and Sayanogorsk as part of the 'School of Social Planning' programme. Currently such units have 133 members.
  
  Volunteer units assist children's committees in organising their activities for the current school year. They actively help organisations to conduct selection festivals for children's committees; they are tutors at the lessons, where the fundamentals of social planning are taught. Volunteers and teenagers from children's committees develop and implement projects.
  
  They are invited as experts to local creative, sporting, and public competitions for children and teenagers. They hold consultations and workshops for their contemporaries on drawing up applications to the '100 Best Projects' competition.
  
• Heads of NGOs and employees of municipal and state institutions in Achinsk, Novokuznetsk, Bratsk, and Sayanogorsk received training under the training programme for coaches, experts, and appraisers of social projects and programmes. They taught social planning to more than 1000 representatives from local communities on a gratuitous basis during 2007.
• Eight projects from 6 cities in Russia and Ukraine aimed at encouraging voluntary work among young people were supported and implemented as part of the 'Take a Step Beyond the Horizon' programme. For example, Krasnoyarsk has a project called 'Do Good', where volunteer students worked with children from social rehabilitation centres and children's homes. They became social workers for the children, held festivals and sporting lessons, and organised work of a volunteer information centre.
  
  Children from Professional Lycée No.8 in Achinsk held social events and helped elderly people. When the project was closed, a group of volunteers was formed to continue this activity.
  
  Workshops were held in Irkutsk as part of the 'Take a Step Forwards – Become a Volunteer' project to popularise the ideas of voluntary work among local young people. As a result, young people organised and held a few social events.
  
  In Nikolaev, future social workers organised an information centre in the Central Library for homeless children, pensioners and disabled people, where they taught them how to operate a computer and use office equipment.
  
• Volunteers helped to organise social events: the 'Route of Good Deeds', opening of a 'Reading Park', preparation and holding of a 'Volunteer Ball', organisation of an exhibition 'Fruit and Vegetable Garden', celebrations of the New Year in the club for elderly people '1+1+.'. More than 60 people were taught ballroom dancing that they demonstrated at volunteer balls held in Krasnoyarsk, Novokuznetsk and Sayanogorsk. Such encouragement of voluntary work has become a good tradition in the Centre of Social Programmes.

Volunteer Ball 2007 Krasnoyarskiy Rabochiy, December 13th, 2007 VOLUNTEERS DO NOT HAVE HOLIDAYS Charity Season 2007, the seventh since its inauguartion, ended on Tuesday, December 11th, in the Palace of Labour and Consent with a grandiose Volunteer Ball, where the results of the Season were summed up, and winners of the public recognition competition received their awards. This year, the Charity Season was sponsored by Rusal's Centre of Social Programmes, the Agency of Social Initiatives, and the charitable foundation 'SM.charity' under the auspices of the Public Relations Board of the Krasnoyarski Krai Administration Council and the Social Policy Department of the Krasnoyarsk Administration. A huge number of events were held during the Season, including the voluntary event 'Spring Week of Good', a competition of projects 'We Can Do It!', a competition 'Social Star', and the 'Route of Good Deeds'. Small but no less important projects were successfully implemented in rural districts, settlements and towns in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The Mana District, Zheleznogorsk, the Achinsk District, the Bolsheuluysk District, Minusinsk, Emelyanovo, Koshurnikovo, and Shushenskoye shared their ideas about voluntary work and charity. It is not accidental that representatives from different districts of the Krasnoyarski Krai won the public recognition competition. Oleg Babushkin, an entrepreneur from Minusinsk and a sponsor of the local wrestling school and many local social institutions was recognised as 'Philanthropist of the Year'. The Krasnoyarsk company 'Karavay' won in the nomination 'Goodwill Firm' (the director – Elvira Manakova); the Zelenogorsk Union of Youth Forces was recognised as 'Volunteer Organisation of the Year', and the 'Young Aban' from the Aban District Recreation Centre won the 'Social Project' nomination. The editorial board of the Nizhny Ingash district newspaper 'Pobeda' was the winner in the 'Social Mass-Media of the Year' nomination, and Lubov Kochneva, a journalist of the regional radio, was named social journalist of the year. ...Ah, the grandeur of a ball is so magic! The charm never ends, if dresses and music are filled with old palace epochs. The organisers of the Volunteer Ball added an epochal style to the event purposefully to recreate the spirit of good creation, which was always an advantage of the society in the pre-revolution Russia. Dancers from the old-fashioned dance band 'Krylya', members of the historical reconstruction club 'Kitezh', musicians of the string quartet 'Prima-Vera', and dancers charming with their ceremonial minuet are volunteers of the regional volunteer movement that covers more than 200 non-commercial youth organisations. The scope of the competition held as part of Charity Season 2007 shows that the movement is getting stronger every year and its audience comprised of schoolchildren, students, and business representatives is expanding. 157 applications have been filed this year from 14 towns and districts in the Krasnoyarski Krai. The nomination 'Volunteer of the Year' received most applications - 61. Elegant emcees in bow ties accompanied guests to the upper hall with classical correctness. 'We are future electrical fitters, and our girls are future staff assistants. Our group consists of volunteers. It is so interesting and wonderful!', as Denis Murashko and Kostya Prilukov, students of Victor Astafyev Vocational School No.19 explained their presence at the ball as the masters of the hall. They had been encouraged to join volunteer work by a physical education teacher and the organiser of the school Elena Smolyaninova, who won in the 'Volunteer of the Year' nomination in the Charity Season. Her team of volunteer students sets the pace in the volunteer movement of the Zheleznodorozhniy District. The festival was full of loud sounds of the orchestra and was enwreathed in smiles. But the organisers stress that this festival is not only a closing but also an intermediate event. A lot of major and important activities have been planned for the forthcoming charity season, as goodwill and mercy do not have holidays. Tatyana ALEXEYEVICH.

Regular participants of the voluntary movement benefit from training on teamwork, leadership and communication skills. The young people involved point out that voluntary work is conducive to personal growth and the development of professional expertise, which many feel certain they will also apply in their future lives.

Spring Week of Good in Krasnoyarsk On April 21st to 28th, 2007, Krasnoyarsk, as well as other towns in Russia and more than 140 countries worldwide held the annual voluntary event 'Spring Week of Good'. During the week, 438 social events were held in towns and districts of the Krasnoyarski Krai involving 16,046 volunteers from 210 organisations. The average age of the volunteers is 12 to 25 years. Partnership Project Krasnoyarsk has been holding the Spring Week of Good from 1998. This year, the organisational committee of the Spring Week of Good included such members as Rusal's Centre of Social Programmes and the Krasnoyarsk Regional NGO 'Agency of Social Initiatives', representatives from youth centres in the Central, Kirovsky and Sverdlovsky districts, volunteer organisations, including children's committees, the Igor Isakov Charitable Foundation, the Krasnoyarsk Regional NGO 'Prinzip Rosta', the Studio PR CENTRE, the 'Kraskon' Confectionary & Macaroni Factory, and the 'Vezdekhod' Advertising Studio. The event was supported by the administration of the Krasnoyarsky Krai and Krasnoyarsk. The Krasnoyarsk Social Policy Department coordinated the work of municipal social institutions related to the voluntary event. Deputy Mayor Vasily Kuimov and Valery Vasilyev, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, were present at the opening ceremony of the Spring Week of Good. The Spring Week of Good became a unique partnership project in Russia long ago. Representatives from public organisations, governmental authorities and commercial enterprises join their efforts to solve acute social problems. All voluntary actions and events demonstrate that voluntary work is an effective method to build a civil society and involve more citizens, especially young people, into socially beneficial voluntary work. Participation in voluntary events fosters mutual assistance, the need to help people, forms civil responsibility, and gives new knowledge and skills useful for volunteers in their future careers. The World of Good Deeds The Krasnoyarski Krai vigorously joined the marathon of good deeds. Events were held in Krasnoyarsk, Zelenogorsk, Achinsk, Kansk, Zaozerniy, Minusinsk, Sosnovoborsk, Lesosibirsk; Birilyussky, Emelyanovsky, Idrinsky, Novoselovsky, and Sayansky Districts. Young people collected books and stuff for people in need, improved territories, discussed good deeds, and popularised a healthy lifestyle. Organisations, citizens, volunteer centres and volunteers alone told about their charity activities at the opening ceremony. Addresses of people, who need support, were placed at different places around the venue for all, who wanted to help. Children from the regional volunteer movement 'Orientir' rendered selective assistance to veterans of the Great Patriotic War: they chopped wood, dug vegetable patches, and cleaned flats and entrances of houses. They arranged a disco for teenagers and young people. From the proceeds they bought sweets for the elderly people. Residents of Zelenogorsk took an active part in the Spring Week of Good as they had done before. Lessons 'What it Means to Do Good' about kindness to others and mercy were held in many local schools this year. School No.163 held a theme competition of verses, essays and pictures. Much attention was paid to elderly people: senior pupils from one school collected charity parcels and handed them over to veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Children made many souvenirs themselves. Children held the event 'Magic Seven-Petal Flower' – they presented lonely people living in a social shelter with flowers in ornamental flowerpots. Such measures join the creative efforts and initiatives of citizens from different social strata in the places they live almost without any expense. Residents get an opportunity to fulfil themselves, to use their possibilities to solve problems and help other people.

Spring Week of Good in numbers and facts

Corporate social responsibility service

Igor Baradachev
CSR@rusal.ru
Tel.: 7 (495) 720-51-71