09/08 2012
"ORT-SPb" Vocational Training Centre is launching a new grant project for aged people
From September 2012 to October 2013 at the "ORT-SPb" Vocational Training Centre 80 aged people of St. Petersburg on a charitable basis will learn to work on a PC, to save in electronic form their personal photos, documents and other evidence of age and create their own electronic memoirs and reminiscences.
The main purpose of the new project "I build a bridge from the past: the electronic memoirs of victims of totalitarian regimes" run by the "ORT-SPb" Vocational Training Centre is the careful preservation of memories in electronic form, documents, photographs and other materials of the project beneficiaries: the aged residents of St. Petersburg (Leningrad) suffered from National Socialism and Stalinism, the inhabitants of the besieged Leningrad and the participants of World War II.
The grant project will be implemented in the framework of the international charity program "Dialog Forum" (“Treffpunkt: Dialog”), undertaken by CAF Russia with the support of the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" (German acronym EVZ). The main object of the Program is to change the lives of aged people qualitatively, to fill it with new meanings and interests, to engage in joint work with the young.
One of the main problems of aged people in our society - it is the loneliness and the feeling of "loss of life." In addition to the social and material support, aged people need attention, sympathy, involvement in life and recognition that allows them to solve psychological problems, and hence improves the health and quality of life and so prolongs their life. Mastering the job on a PC aged people not only get new skills, but also engage in public life, which allows to solve the problem of their isolation. Aged people are witnesses and participants in many important events in our country. The experience and knowledge, personal testimonies of former prisoners of concentration camps and ghettos, war veterans, or the Siege of Leningrad is invaluable for understanding the history, for connecting generations and the education of youth. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of preserving and publishing memoirs and testimonies of these people.
The project "ORT-SPb" Vocational Training Centre is providing 80 aged St. Petersburg citizens with opportunity to learn to use a PC, digital camera, to process digital photos and to scan old photographs from family archives, to master the basics of working with text documents, to get up in electronic format their own personal photos, historical documents and memoirs. The duration of training is to be 6 weeks.
Photo archives and memoirs, diary entries and poetry are the evidences of era, saved and restored to life by hands of aged people, will be another message from the older generation to their heirs. Created during the training electronic memoirs will be posted online at the web-site of "ORT-SPb" Vocational Training Centre.
Another goal of the international charity program “Dialog Forum” does not stay away as well. Through participation of young St. Petersburg citizens in the project a fruitful inter-generational communication and co-creation of aged people and youth will be possible. One of the objects of the project is to collect and preserve the history of "the people". Young people, who will to participate in the project, be able to talk with witnesses of the events that took place not only in the history of Russia, but also changed the lives of people around the world. After listening to an aged people, by writing their stories and saving them in electronic form, the young participants of the project will not only help aged people to feel their importance, to realize that each of them is not alone and in demand, but also to acquire new knowledge and greater appreciation of aged people. Active young people willing to donate their time and attention to pensioners, as well as to contribute to the preservation of memories of the elderly, victims of totalitarian regimes, can take part in interviewing older members of the project, scanning and processing of documents, photographs and other archival materials, help older people in the creation of electronic memoirs, and much more.
Training and participation in the project, "I build a bridge from the past: the electronic memoirs of victims of totalitarian regimes" are available for ex-prisoners of concentration camps and ghettos, residents of besieged Leningrad, the victims of Stalinist repression, the people of the occupied territories, the participants in the Second World War, and other elderly people over 67 years, and the young St. Petersburg citizens.
Elena Makarova, PR-Manager, "ORT-SPb"
Links:
