04.10.2019

At a meeting of the All-Russian Forum of “silver” volunteers held in Moscow from 1-4 October, Tatyana Golikova, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, stated that the difficulties faced by volunteers in gaining access to Pyscho-Neurological Residential Institutions (PNRIs) will be resolved shortly.

A participant at the forum drew Golikova’s attention to the fact that volunteers are not allowed to offer help to people living in PNRIs. “Unfortunately, a lot of these institutions don’t open their doors to outsiders because they have nothing to show them… They are not always in a good state, although the Ministry of Labour is doing an enormous amount of work to improve living conditions within PNRIs. The Government will be issuing the necessary orders to improve the lives of those who have been neglected”, said Golikova.

Volunteers have difficulty in gaining access not only to PNRIs but also to other social institutions, according to Artem Metelev, Chair of the Board of the Association of Volunteer Centres and a member of the Federation’s Public Chamber. “There is a problem in the current procedures governing cooperation between the authorities and their subordinate institutions and those who organise the deployment of volunteers, namely the overly large list of medical assessments and certificates that have to be provided to volunteers even if they are just visiting to play games with the children”.

Metelev stated that excessively regulated rules currently operating in many regions needed to be amended. In response, Golikova said that this would be resolved in the near future with the necessary instructions issued to the responsible authorities.

The All-Russian Forum of “silver” volunteers comes under the auspices of the Federal State Budgetary Institution’s Rospatriotsentr, the Association of Volunteer Centres and the Moscow Committee of Public Relations and Youth Policy.

Source: https://www.asi.org.ru/news/2019/10/04/tatyanagolikov/