While Russian schoolchildren are returning after the pandemic to their desks and finishing the first month of the school year, Dozens of children remain without access to general education in Moscow. These are the children of refugees and migrants.. About, who helps them in the Russian capital, in an interview FAN told the director of the integration center "The same children" Marina Obmolova.
Every year, thousands of foreigners come to Russia for a variety of reasons.. Among them are families with children., who flee the war and try to settle in our country in the hope of a better life. And not all of them have the necessary documents for this..
The unsettled legal status of parents hits children. It is for this reason that they cannot get into a comprehensive school..
The Center "Children Like This" helps families of refugees and migrants 25 years. Here the child can learn Russian and receive psychological help.
About, why is it difficult for refugee children to get into Russian schools and what kind of help young migrants need, to socialize in Moscow, Marina Obmolova said in an interview with the Federal News Agency.
Origin countries, life-threatening
How did the center come about??
- It was almost 25 years ago. During the Chechen campaigns, a large number of refugees fled here from Chechnya. people came, contacted the Civic Assistance Committee (recognized as a foreign agent. - Note. FAN.), which provides legal and humanitarian support. While they were waiting in line, it happened often, that the children had nowhere to attach. A small room was opened at the committee, where volunteers worked with children, played and worked with them. As a result, the center "The Same Children" grew out of this volunteer story.. Original name — Center for Adaptation of Refugee Children.
– How many children and from which countries are the pupils of the center today?
- At the moment we have only up to 100 children. This is a very floating number.. Will explain, how do children get to our center to study. Usually from organizations, who deal with the same problem. There is UNHCR, there is Civic Assistance, there is the Russian Red Cross and other organizations. If they are approached by family, they can send the kids to us. And we take them, if we have places in groups. Or it can be word of mouth - families tell each other about us. Or people find out about us through the Internet, write and come to us.
- What countries are these??
- Middle Asia, Africa (Congo, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda), Afghanistan, Syria. Now Cuban families have contacted us. At different times it was the Philippines, and Vietnam. And what countries just were not. We have the widest geography. If they contact us, we have no restrictions.
- As I understand, among the pupils there are children from the war zone.
- Congo, Cameroon, Afghanistan is always a story about, what are the "countries of origin, life-threatening".
- They need psychological help?
- Of course. But we don't have a psychologist's office. There's no such thing, that the child sits down and tells the psychologist, what he went through. We have a group, run by a psychologist, is a group for young children.
The main problem is not even, that the child survived the fighting. She is in, what, when these kids come here, they have very poor living conditions.
They are malnourished, they lack social interaction, often they live in crowded apartments. This is a very traumatic story., the child is under constant stress because of this. We are working, rather, with the consequences of such daily stress. Can't select, what does it have to do with combat?. This is due to the fact, that life in general for refugees and migrants is very difficult, living conditions are poor.
Schools are not for everyone
What can a child learn from you?
— Depending on the request. Usually, this is a query in Russian. We teach Russian and try to create a system, in which the child can study the same subjects, as in school, if we have enough resources, volunteers and coordinators.
– And what is the difficulty in finding language courses for a family of refugees or migrants?
- The problem is this. People contact us, who either often do not have a job, or there is no way to pay for Russian language courses. There are very few state programs and centers for free education in Russian. There are projects, doing something similar, but it has its limitations. We work with children for free. Teaching methodology is, she exists. RKI (Russian as a foreign language. - Note. FAN) is a whole line. There are simply no public free courses.
- As far as I understand, children of refugees and migrants have certain problems on the way to entering a general education school.
- Yes. There is a problem with that, that children without documents are not taken to school. More precisely - without registration. The Constitution of the Russian Federation says, that any child can go to school, regardless of their status, on, where did he come from. In fact, there is a portal "Gosuslugi", and to get the child to school, you need to register here and choose a school. To do this, you need to register at the place of residence. How do you understand, some of the refugees are not officially registered refugees, this people, who apply for refugee status and are waiting, whether they approve it or not. If not, they go to the appeal process, and it can last for years.
They don't have a registration. And it turns out, that their children cannot go to school.
Many don't know, how to get out of this situation. If such families turn to lawyers, they are working on this problem. But in general the situation is, that such children are not taken to school en masse. I can not say, that we are trying to replace them with school education, because we do not have an educational license and volunteers take care of the children. But we try to give them at least something., some educational support.
- The team of the center - who is it? Who is teaching?
- Teachers are volunteers 100%. Our center is generally famous for, what is this volunteer story. We have a very small team: Director, coordinators and psychologist, and everything else is everything, what is taught is volunteers. People, who come and volunteer their time for children.
— And who supports and finances the work of the center?
— The center exists on subsidies and grants, we have sponsors. We see, that a grant appears - as usual, to charity - and we try to fit into this grant. If we win, get funding.
- I can't help but ask.: How has the pandemic affected your work??
- We are faced with, that lack of technology. We received a number of phones from UNHCR and distributed them to families. They lacked technical equipment, to work remotely, because we have transferred all our studies to this format. Many [from refugee families] faced with, who lost their jobs.
Do children from such families face prejudice against themselves from society??
- Collide. Russia is quite conservative and, how to say it, there is this: "Russians are not Russians". it, I think, not a secret.
- How can this be changed??
- I think, through educational and cultural, educational projects. It is necessary to bring it into the information field and work with this topic. We did a big festival together with museums for two years in a row, dedicated to ethnocultural diversity: with the Museum of Moscow, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Tretyakov Gallery, UNHCR. This is an example. I just don't see any other way. If there's a problem, it needs to be talked about. But not to speak in some directive tone, a, rather, expand the picture of the world.
Author: Regina again
