1.     What was the most compelling (convincing/ irresistible) story that came out of the interview? 

The interviewee’s initiative is quite new, but it’s already known in Gomel region. Volunteers without Borders appeared as a response to social problems in the regional centre that suffered Chernobyl disaster the most. Created in 2006 to increase the level of civic engagement and promote volunteerism within LGBT people in Gomel, the activities of the Volunteers without Borders include managing a database of local social service institutions and projects, recruitment of volunteers, ongoing volunteer training, linking of volunteers with local social service institutions and projects, and maintaining LGBT volunteers network. The obstacles facing civil society development in Belarus include the existence of a weak national consciousness, an undeveloped private sector, the absence of a middle class, and apathetic mass attitudes towards public issues. Volunteerism in Belarus lacks a clear vision and its presence in society remains low. Volunteer work also does not receive much social acknowledgment or prestige. There is a low level of awareness about volunteers and volunteerism in the country. Existing NGOs in Gomel do not run formal volunteer programs, instead they recruit volunteers from time to time based on their one-time needs. Furthermore, as they do not employ volunteer managers to coordinate volunteer management and recognition programs, these episodic volunteers do not receive the satisfaction for the time and efforts they give to the organizations resulting in a lot of frustration and reducing interest in volunteering.    The long-term consequence of this project will be a higher degree of political engagement as LGBT people (especially youth) come to understand the important role they can play as individuals active in the community.          

2.     What was the coolest quote that came out of the interview? “Nobody asks you to be a hero, but even a small dead can make a difference.” 

3.     What did the interviewee contribute to our thinking regarding

 ·        Promotion of minority culture

One of the most important ways of promotion of LGBT culture is seen to be when sexual minorities show themselves as normal members of the society. We we’re those who care and who can solve problems in our local communities, we are useful, helpful and supportive, we’re as good as our neighbours. We shouldn’t hide this from them. The problem of the societal perception of LGBT people is coming from invisibility of sexual minorities. The society doesn’t see real people, but only stereotypical models from bad educated experts (i.e. doctors, teachers, journalists, etc.). Other important way is the mainstreaming of the issue in media. Good example of this in Belarus – a Month against homophobia that (thanks to media) revitalized public discussion on sexual minorities.

 ·        Sexual health/ HIV

Working on prevention HIV/AIDS and STDs within MSM, it is important to take in mind their connections to other groups (incl. youth, drag users, sex business, etc.). No to separation!        

4.     What did the interviewee contribute to our thinking regarding organisational factors such as

·        Motivating human resources

Volunteers without Borders recognize LGBT people as problem solvers themselves who can contribute their energy and insights to community growth and progress. Through opportunities to become engaged, LGBT people come to think themselves as partners and stakeholders in society, acquiring a sense of responsibility for the common good and a positive attitude toward active citizenship. Perhaps most importantly, an excluded LGBT person who feels he or she has something to offer also feels a sense of belonging and a sense of worth – so critical to his or her positive growth and development.  

·        Leadership

NGO leaders often face extraordinary challenges – both at a personal and organizational level. These challenges are demanding, and distinct from those faced by governments or the for-profit sector. Many Belarusian LGBT leaders are intuitive and not professional. It’s important to get professional knowledge and skills through different educational programs in the country and abroad. NGO leaders are often isolated and unsupported. There is talk of a leadership deficit, because of the shortage of talented leaders and the growth of the non-profit sector generally. As a result there is some urgency in attempts to develop a new generation of leaders, and to provide relevant support to existing and future leaders. Leadership development programs designed for NGO leaders must as a consequence incorporate best practice and current experience rather than rehashing tired, traditional approaches to leadership training.  

·        Sharing knowledge

In Belarusian reality the main safe ways that could be seen are Internet and all kinds of gatherings abroad.   

5.     Describe in one paragraph, the response to a strong civil society organisation. 

Clear vision and mission, division between leadership and management, professional staff, internal democratic procedures, strategic planning, mobility and flexibility in all spheres, growing activism, membership and finances.   

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I

Antipsychiatry, without scrupluousness and ebundant detalisation, could be reduced to two postulates: all the diseases and conditions, which are coded in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) with the “F” letter – present the result of the pathogenic character of the society. The society, however, has never been burdened with this guilt, and the psychiatry itself produces new diseases in order to “cure” those who are not in their place in the society and who don’t present the organic part of the commodity-money relations (but there is a small paradox: psychiatry is financed on the leftover principle and often doesn’t bring profits). This article describes the experience of a person with psychiatric diagnosis in Belarus.

If you or your relatives have psychiatrical problems, the initial consultation is needed. It is very questionable that polyclinics and dispansers have the professionals who could set a differentiated diagnosis. You will be accurately put on the register, and will get certificates of health and recepies. If you would need to get consultation, the price list varies from $ 10-15 from the acquainted psychiatrist, and up to 50 euro from the celebrity.

Further fate of the patient corresponds to the diagnosis, and you should be ready, that you are your diagnosis. If you are lucky to have small psychotic episode, everything will be fine, but if you are not lucky to have, for example, recurrent depression, you should be ready to pay and pay – for drugs, consultations of the psychiatrists and psychotherapy.

If you don’t have money, you could hope for the God, since there are a lot of his adepts in the psychiatric clinics, what, admittedly, stimulates the appearance of religious delirium, and opens new possibilities for the depressive patients in the sphere of self-accusation. But no one will place you in the psychiatric hospital by force, while NO ONE NEEDS YOU.

More serious problems start, when “nosos” becomes “pathos”, and the disease becomes a state, which disturbs those around one – to such extent that in order to get rid of it they are ready to get rid of you.

In order to obtain the status of disabled and to be placed in the charge of the state and die with dignity in its careful hands, you shall go through several comissions, collect referencies, medical certificates, and pay comissions to the comissions.

The relatives disavow themselves in the courtroom, and solemnly replace the responsibility for the patient on the state and on the director of the internat who becomes the caretaker. The internat no. 2 takes care of over 700 people and the internat no. 3 - over 400. In general in Belarus there are over 10.000 people and their relatives on the waitlist for the “social accomodation” in the internats. Passing through the queue could be fastened by bribery or by a good alliance with the official of the ministry. The cost of this service could be compared to the cost of the getting of the rap.

The rumours about violent death of the patients (which could not be checked) are heard in the internats from time to time. We could claim that noone tries to keep these people in this world – the queue does not wait and the places shall be vacated.

There is only one nurse for 3 departments of the internat, where all the patients are disabled of the 2^nd group and recognized as incapable. Over 60 people could live in one department. In the internats usually works one psychiatrist, and possibly one psychologist. And there is a gigantic quantity of administrators including the director.

The departments of the internats could be “closed” or “open”. From the “open” department you are allowed to go out, certainly with minor reservations, and have a walk across the territory of the internat, while from the “closed” you are not. Most of the departments are “closed”. The strangers are not allowed to penetrate the closed departments of the internats. The territory of the prisons for those, whose world perception and orientation in it differ from the generally acepted norm, is surrounded with high fence, in order to get there ones have to pass the controls.

In the psychoneurological internats various “projects” take place, among them the workshops, financed by the foreign charitable organizations. The workshop of the internat no. 3 covers about 5% of the general quantity of the people who live in this house of pain. Belarusian psychiatry is not familiar with such methodics as androgogy or art-terapy. Indeed, everything is not too dramatic - there are usually a table-tennis, exercise bycicle, and race-track in the internats. Such final goals of psychotherapy as rehabilitation or socialization, which are formulated in the laws of the civilized countries, are out of the question here. I would not like to name the internats reservations, but they really are.

In case of formulation of the psychiatric diagnosis the further fate of the person is determined exceptionally by the diagnosis while the Belarusian system of psychiatric help presents algorytmizated disgrace with confined quantity of elements.  

II 

The problem of the Belarusian psychoneurological internats is obscure against the background of the numerous social and economic problems of the country: those who do not bring economic benefits to the state present a burden for it. The fate of the people who live in the internats and of the patients of the psychiatric clinics to a large extent concern only those who are in the similar situation themselves or whose relatives bear the stigma of the psychiatric diagnosis. Liquidation of social benefits for the disabled group of population in the course of neoliberal reforms which go on in the country, don’t leave any hope for better changes to the people living in the internats. They could only wait for help from the international charitable organizations, good people and volunteers. The fate of the people who live in Belarusian psychoneurological internats for children and adults in the most rigid form demonstrates the consequences of the Lukashenko’s social politics.

In these institutions, which are not properly financed by the state, there are not enough of basic medicaments, clothes and wheelchairs, the food is awful and the staff usually is not trained properly to work with people with special needs. People who live there can’t fight for their rights, and are destined to silence. Information about everyday violation of human rights comes from the walls of the internats only when the situation becomes critical.

While the money from the sponsors are very welcome in the internats: the administration usually uses them in order to make renovations and buy technics, the presence of the volunteers is faced with hostility. The attitude of these young people to the patients differs a lot from the usualy accepted. They communicate with these people as with their friends, which is not common within the precincts of the internats. The principle of volunteership is very simple - each person to the extent of his or her forces and abilities could teach the others to do what he or she can do himself or herself: to draw, to sing, to play musical instruments, to cook, to make things with hands. It is based on the idea, that all of us could share understanding, communication and care, in order to feel the joy of the common creative work and empathy.

The experience of the volunteer initiative, which exists in the psychoneurological internats of Minsk for 3 years, proves that even small group of active people, joined by the general aim and acting in accordance with the principle of self-organization, could change the situation for better without any help form the state and practically without any financing from the outside. This more or less constant and gradually growing in numbers group of volunteers is comprised by the young people from Belarus, Germany and Austria, who work together in the internats for children and adults with special needs.

They work together in order to give to the patients of the internats the possibility to feel themselves human. Each summer with financial assistance of the German organization “Kanikuli e.V.” (http://www.kanikuli-ev.de/) the volunteers organize summer camps for children and grown ups. The volunteer camps present a successful common project of the young people from Germany and Belarus, which works in accordance with the principles of self-organization and mutual understanding between the cultures.

Many of the volunteers who came to Belarus for a year from Germany and Austria to work in the internats then come back in order to meet their friends from the internats and take part in the organization of the summer camps. They come back because it is difficult to forget about the dreadful situation which they witnessed in the Belarusian internats. Belarusian volunteers work mostly in the institutions for the adults, there, where help is needed first of all.

From 2004 in one of the psychoneurological internats of Minsk works the art studio “The Home” (http://navinki.page.by/), which was organized by one volunteer. Art exhibitions of one of the participants of the workshop – Gena Grishel were held in 2006 and in 2007 in the art-gallery “Podzemka”, Minsk (http://www.urban.by/2007/07/07/art_nu-vo). The exhibitions faced great success from the audience and got broad feedback in the media, which marks the significant meaning of the initiative from the position of art and society.

The work of the patients in this studio to such extent breaks out from the regular order of things in the internat, that you can’t believe that it is possible at all. The art studio becomes a place for life and creative work for them. The people who attend the studio display their ability to create even in the hard circumstances of the psychoneurological internat. For many of them their art is the only possible form of expression – and they have their right for the voice. The art has therapeutic function and makes possible the development and self-actualisation of the personality. However, for the creative activities of the people with special needs the appropriate conditions are necessary. Antisocial reforms which go on in the country deprive these people of their right for personal development and inclusion into society.

The solution of the problem of psychoneurological internats is possible only through their reforms and creation of the alternative forms of living for the people with special needs. This goal will be achieved only if the problem of the internats which presents now the problem only for the people who live in the internats and their relatives, will become visible for the society.

In order to demand the maintenance of rights, creation of the adequate conditions for living, development and rehabilitation, and social guarantees for the people with special needs it is necessary to join the efforts of relatives and friends, the patients themselves, volunteers, lawyers, workers of the internats, representatives of non-governmental organizations and psychiatrists with humanistic views. The people with special needs could not only take, they have feelings, needs, desires and phantasies. Social guarantees, protection of rights, and creation of the appropriate conditions are necessary for them in order to allow them not to be the victims of their diagnoses and the prisoners of the internats. As each of us, they have a right for the place in the world.  

Web-Sites:http://www.kanikuli-ev.de/http://navinki.page.by/http://community.livejournal.com/uzaemadapamoga/ 

Contacts: dede@tut.byoutreacher@gmail.com