Russia

Agency for Social Information (ASI)
$60,000*
To build regional NGO coalitions and strengthen ties between regional and issue-based associations, coalitions, and networks of civil society organizations throughout Russia. ASI will research and publish information about active networks of NGOs that currently exist in Russia. To promote local coalitions, ASI will award six small support grants for projects that seek to engage regional NGOs in cooperative activities.

Agency for Social Information
$60,000
To collect and disseminate information on the activities of Russian NGOs and other events of importance for civil society. ASI will maintain its network of correspondents and affiliate offices in 25 Russian regions, which will provide regular reports that will be edited, posted on the ASI website, and distributed by email. ASI will post these materials and other information on Russian NGOs on its website.

AGORA Association
$45,000
To offer legal and informational assistance to NGOs that come under pressure from the authorities as a result of their work. AGORA will provide support to activists and organizations coming under various forms of pressure, such as criminal and civil suits and campaigns to discredit their activities. Such pressure has increased dramatically with the approach of the parliamentary and presidential elections.

All-Russian Public Movement "Za Prava Cheloveka" (ZPC)
$60,000*
To support its network of regional human-rights organizations and to directly engage in cases involving human rights violations. ZPC will continue to consult with these organizations on the cases they face, and will assist regional groups that run into problems with local authorities. In addition, ZPC will provide direct support to five organizations in its network to permit them to operate on a full-time basis.

American Center for International Labor Solidarity
$100,001
To promote freedom of association by building the capacity of workers in St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast, and Samara Oblast to conduct internal and external organizing campaigns and to promote regional cooperation between their free trade unions. The Center will support regional trade union outreach centers in St. Petersburg and Samara, as well as two organizing skills seminars and two strategic planning seminars.

Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Center
$55,000*
To organize a competition among public school teachers from 25 Russian regions for the best lesson plan on the history of totalitarianism and political repression in Russia. 30 finalists will travel to Moscow for a three-day conference on techniques for teaching about political repression. The lesson plans of the finalists will be compiled into a handbook and published.

Baltic International Development Agency (BIDA)
$26,200
To continue a program to strengthen NGOs in Kaliningrad region. NED funds will be used to continue providing technical assistance through BIDA’s NGO Information and Consulting Center, which was established in 2002 with NED support, and to organize training workshops for a total of 140 NGO activists.

Center for Civic Education and Human Rights
$45,000
To introduce human rights classes and civic education into Russia’s schools and universities. As in the past, the program will involve training teachers and university professors, developing human rights and civic education curricula, and publishing teaching materials. The Center will also create a database of social studies teachers in Perm region, and will expand its alumni network to communicate better with graduates of the program.

Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights
$50,000
To raise awareness of the importance of transparency, to promote public discussion of draft laws, and to stimulate an effective civic response to legislative initiatives. The Center will produce several publications on the Duma, including an electronic bulletin analyzing draft legislation, and a book evaluating the voting patterns of Duma deputies and assessing them from the point of view of human rights and civil society.

Center for International Private Enterprise
$257,715
To enhance the ability of Russian business associations to effectively develop and propagate messages and information to constituents and policymakers by developing their ability to think and act strategically about communications. This will strengthen not only the internal membership base of business support organizations, but also their external voice, which should be convincing to the business community, the Russian people, and the government.

Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations
$57,513
To monitor and research violence or pressure against journalists. In particular, the Center’s staff will conduct investigations into murders, kidnappings, and other forms of violence against journalists in order to determine if they are connected to these journalists’ professional activities. Regular monitoring and research will be carried out by the Center’s network of correspondents, as well as through cooperation with the media and regional NGOs.

Center for Public Information
$60,000
To help human rights and civil society organizations work more effectively with the media through a program of press releases and press conferences, building a regional correspondent network, and monitoring the media’s coverage of human rights topics. The Center will also publish the Chronicle of the Moscow Helsinki Group, in addition to a weekly digest of political and NGO news coverage in the Russian press.

Center for Social and Labor Rights
$38,500*
To establish, maintain, and popularize an interactive Internet portal on its website, which promotes workers’ knowledge of their legal rights and their capacity to defend them. Using accessible language, the website will provide independent and objective information to help workers make informed and independent decisions about their situations and options for improving them.

Center for Social Partnership
$50,000
To disseminate successful self-government models to other towns in Yaroslavl oblast and other Russian regions. The Center will also educate newly-elected members of local self-government bodies, and encourage dialogue between NGOs and local politicians. Further, under this year’s program, the Center will conduct a monitoring program across Yaroslavl oblast for the elections to be held in 2007 and 2008.

Center for the Support of Nonpolitical Organizations
$22,000
To develop the third sector in Russia’s Yaroslavl Oblast. The Center will begin its program by widening its existing database of regional social organizations, partly by searching records of registered NGOs with regional registration authorities. It will distribute information about and invitations to upcoming project activities to all of the organizations in its database, including 500 copies of a four-page booklet about its work.

Center for Trade Union Education
$44,600
To research and monitor workplace discrimination against women in the regions of Sverdlovsk , Perm, Kurgan, and Tyumen. Following the research, it will conduct a series of strategic activities designed to educate human rights NGOs about conditions in Russia in relation to international norms and set precedents that successfully counter workplace discrimination.

Centre de la Protection Internationale
$50,000*
To offer specialized trainings in Strasburg, where the European Court is based, to highly qualified lawyers and advocates from Russia and other CIS countries who work in the international human rights field. Participants in the program will attend hearings of the Court, discuss its proceedings in groups, and meet with specialists in international human rights law.

Chechen Committee for National Salvation
$95,000*
To protect refugees remaining in Ingushetia and those who return to Chechnya. The Committee will distribute frequent press releases on developments in the region from its headquarters in Ingushetia, as well as from three regional offices in Chechnya. The Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Forced Migrants will receive a small support grant for a program to reduce tensions in the region.

Chelyabinsk Regional Public Fund "Helping Hand"
$57,000*
To continue its program of legal aid and human-rights education and training in four central Russian cities. Helping Hand will continue to offer free legal aid to inmates in the regional prison system and their families, and will continue to provide courses on human rights, democracy, and civic activism. They will also produce a human rights almanac for the southern Urals.

Club Firn
$25,000*
To increase opportunities for youth participation in civic life. Club Firn will conduct a training program for youth leaders to increase their knowledge and skills relating to politics. Club Firn will then help these young people to conduct their own advocacy campaigns and civic events, providing technical support during the events, including help with coalition building and public outreach.

Da! Youth Movement
$43,716*
To organize a series of debates between politicians, journalists, and civil society and cultural figures, covering a wide range of topics of particular interest to young people. Audience members will vote to choose the winner of each debate. The project’s web site will broadcast the debates across Russia and serve as a forum where people can continue to discuss the issues raised during the events .

Dagestanskii Rakurs
$48,652*
To publish its newspaper, Dagestanskii Rakurs, which is the only independent publication on human rights in Dagestan. Dagestanskii Rakurs will continue to cooperate with regional NGOs while attempting to expand its print run for distribution throughout the North Caucasus. Cooperation with various Internet sites and mailing lists will help increase the paper’s impact beyond the North Caucasus, and the newspaper will develop its own website.

Eko-Logika
$20,000*
To conduct a project involving training seminars, a resource center and an informational campaign. The seminars and campaign will teach participants and citizens how to request information from local government sources; the resource center will provide office equipment and consultative support needed to submit such requests.

Ekaterinburg Memorial
$50,000*
To support its ongoing operations, including: maintaining exhibits on human rights; operating a library on the history of political repression, and public reading room for the democratic press; and providing students and teachers with a video center and an Internet classroom to study human rights. Ekaterinburg Memorial will also operate a public legal aid office and offer management and financial training to NGO leaders.

Environmental Rights Center "Bellona"
$46,000*
To expand its website, which it will use to inform the NGO community of environmental and human rights issues. In order to foster inter-organizational discussion, Bellona will provide daily updates of its electronic journal, Ecology and the Law. It will also conduct five seminars for NGO activists in different regions of Russia to teach them how to use the Internet to communicate and network more effectively.

Golos Association
$49,500
To restructure its regional offices. Golos will reregister its 40 regional offices, subordinating each office to one of six interregional foundations based in Moscow, Samara, Pskov, Novosibirsk, Krasnodar, and Chelyabinsk. It will also train foundation leaders to coordinate the network’s activities and instruct local staff on carrying out legal and financial reporting.

The Humanist Center
$50,000*
To engage progressive members of Russian teacher training institutes in a multifaceted curriculum development program. The Center will create alternative educational curricula that use principles of tolerance to oppose ideologies of chauvinism, militarism, clericalism, and authoritarianism. The curricula will be disseminated via CD-Rom and the Internet and introduced into the education system.

Independent Council of Legal Expertise
$65,000*
To carry out a wide variety of activities related to the Russian legal system. The Council will monitor legislative developments in the State Duma and regional legislatures; provide legal advice to human rights organizations; monitor developments within law enforcement, legislative, and judicial bodies; work with groups of law students on advanced research projects concerning human rights; and conduct an advocacy and training program for journalists.

Independent Press Center
$50,000
To organize press conferences and other events on behalf of NGOs. The Independent Press Center has hosted six to seven events per week in previous years. Even in the current restricted conditions, the Press Center has broken a number of important national stories on human rights and democracy topics.

Information and Analysis Center 'SOVA'
$60,000
To monitor nationalism and xenophobia in Russia and track the use of anti-extremist legislation to restrict civil liberties. The Sova Center will work with young democratic activists, and will coordinate with other NGOs and law enforcement agencies to inform them of the results of its monitoring activities. It will also publish a series of books and reports to raise awareness of the issue.

The Information Center of the Council of Non-Profit Organizations
$25,000
To expand its network of volunteer correspondents in Chechnya and to provide volunteers with training and equipment needed to carry out ongoing monitoring of and reporting on conditions inside Chechnya. The Center will also compile and distribute this information widely inside and outside Russia.

Information Research Center 'PANORAMA’
$65,000
To train young activists from democratic youth organizations—such as Oborona, Young Yabloko, Young SPS, DA!, and Greenpeace Russia—in journalism. Trainees will learn skills that are useful and often essential for civic and political organizations, such as how to obtain and verify facts, establish working contacts, understand government and legal systems, and clearly express points of view.

Institute for Information Freedom Development
$55,890*
To monitor the websites of regional governments for compliance with Russian law on public access to information. The Institute will open court cases against government agencies that fail to comply with laws and regulations mandating disclosure of information. The Institute will publish all information gathered during the course of the project on its website and will compile and distribute a series of reports on freedom of information.

International Protection Center
$39,000*
To offer free legal representation and consultation to victims of human rights violations in Russia. For those individuals who have exhausted all available remedies under the Russian court system, the Center will offer assistance in pursuing their cases through the European Court of Human Rights or the United Nations’ Committee on Human Rights.

Interregional Foundation "For Civil Society" (IFCS)
$60,000*
To distribute grants of approximately $4,000 to between 10 and 15 human rights groups outside of Russia’s large cities. IFCS will appoint a committee to approve proposals from regional NGOs and offer legal, managerial and organizational support to these groups, focusing especially on the complex new NGO law. If needed, IFCS will send experts into the field to provide emergency assistance to the grantees.

International Republican Institute
$225,225
To train and equip Russian young people with the necessary leadership skills and understanding of democratic values to be successful in designing and managing programs. IRI will select young people from Moscow, St. Petersburg ,Irkutsk, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhni Novgorod, Tyumen and Novosibirsk to take part in ten two-day trainings. The trainings will cover democratic values, leadership skills, and methods of civic activism.

Kabardin-Balkar Republic Public Human Rights Center
$30,000
To continue its program of human rights activism in the predominantly Muslim republic of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North Caucasus. The Center will render free legal aid; monitor the activity of the courts and encourage judicial, legal and other reforms that promote human rights and democracy; research Stalin-era crimes in Kabardino-Balkaria; and hold a series of roundtable discussions to deepen local understanding of these issues.

Lawyers for Civil Society (LCS)
$42,500*
To help NGOs defend themselves from increased regulatory pressure. Working in close cooperation with the Russian and US-based organizations, LCS will offer free legal aid to 15 NGOs from various regions of Russia and use the experience gained as the basis for a comprehensive “organizational audit” system that can be used by other organizations throughout Russia.

League of Women Voters of St. Petersburg (LWV)
$45,000
To help young people become more actively involved in Russia’s civic life. LWV will hold a series of seminars and round table discussions on Russian politics for young civic activists from six regions: Arkhangelsk, Vyborg, Kaliningrad, Pskov, Tver, and St. Petersburg. The League will also hold legal consultations for young people at its headquarters in St. Petersburg and continue to publish its newspaper, The League of Women Voters.

Mashr
$42,500*
To help end forced disappearances by publicizing them and encouraging officials to investigate them. Mashr will also continue to provide extensive legal aid to victims’ families, improve its website, distribute news and information about the situation in Ingushetia, and investigate disappearances with the help of a small group of volunteers. This year, Mashr will seek increased cooperation with the local media, authorities, and other NGOs.

Memo.ru
$75,000*
To maintain the Caucasus Switchboard, as well as to improve the quality of the website’s journalism. With a network of correspondents providing original reporting from 19 regions in the Caucasus, Memo.ru will cover regional events around the clock. Memo.ru will provide daily updates of the English-language version of the site and expand the analytical materials available.

Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG)
$75,000*
To conduct a legal aid project for NGO activists. MHG will provide activists who are harassed or arrested for their activities with access to high-quality legal defense and work to publicize any arrests or trials of activists. MHG will maintain a legal defense fund to retain litigators and pay for their travel within Russia, as well as hire a full-time lawyer to handle ongoing matters.

Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG)
$75,000
To organize the fourth annual All-Russia Civic Congress, which will bring together 1,000 representatives of NGOs, trade unions, political parties, the media, the business community, the arts, and academia from across Russia. This project is designed to help the Congress build its regional network, improve outreach to the Russian public and the media, and develop contacts with government bodies.

Mothers of Chechnya
$37,000
To offer legal aid and advice to the families of citizens that were kidnapped or disappeared during and after the two wars in Chechnya. The Association will help relatives continue searching for their missing relatives and will help them press criminal charges or file civil suits in court. It will also continue to maintain and expand its database on cases of disappearance in Chechnya.

Murmansk Association of Women Journalists
$35,000*
To develop public service journalism in two regions of the Russian northwest. By supporting the Association’s training program in civic journalism, the Endowment makes a direct contribution to democracy in Russia by increasing the coverage of significant local issues and providing a forum for communication between local government and the public.

Nizhny Novgorod Committee Against Torture
$70,000*
To improve the handling of Chechen torture cases in the Russian and international courts. The Committee will monitor incidents of torture, initiate investigations, and forward information to the Prosecutor’s Office requesting that criminal cases be opened. The Committee will pursue the case through the Russian court system and the European Court of Human Rights and will work with the media to publicize the issue.

Nonviolence International
$50,000*
To enhance local officials’ ability to enact the new federal law on local government in a democratic manner, while reducing ethnic tension by bringing officials from throughout the North Caucasus together as trainers and participants for seminars on the law. Nonviolence International will hold ten seminars for young people and government officials, and will publish informational material on the law for public distribution.

Planet of Hopes
$38,000
To stem widespread abuses of human rights in Russia’s closed cities, or ZATOs. Planet of Hopes will analyze relevant legislation to establish a legal basis for contesting the practice of refusing entry into ZATOs, open a public reception office for human rights in Ozersk, organize legal reception centers in other cities, and lobby the Ozersk city legislature to create a human rights commission.

Rostov Center for Civic and Legal Education
$30,000*
To organize training seminars for teachers, hold a summer camp and a youth festival with a human rights orientation, publish a book on human rights for young people, and run a student oratory contest on human rights. Further, the Rostov Center will operate a free legal aid clinic, using students of the law department of Rostov State University to provide assistance to indigent residents of Rostov.

Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
$25,000
To counteract the manipulation of information on the North Caucasus by the Russian government. The Society’s network of correspondents in Chechnya will send frequent reports to the Society’s Nizhny Novgorod office, which will edit and distribute them by e-mail as press releases. The Society will also produce preliminary research on establishing a war crimes tribunal on Chechnya.

Social Organization "Parity"
$20,000
To increase political participation among young people, educate young people about their rights and responsibilities as voters, and monitor the upcoming 2007 and 2008 elections. The project will involve a series of seminars for young people from seven cities of Sverdlovsk Oblast, local seminars in at least four of these cities, publication of a brochure, and election monitoring activities.

Soldiers’ Mothers of St. Petersburg
$68,000*
To assist draftees and servicemen in defending their rights through a program of training and education. Soldiers’ Mothers will conduct its Human Rights School and follow-up workshops for recruits and their families. Soldiers’ Mothers will also help runaway soldiers who have suffered abuse to protect their rights through the Military Prosecutor’s Office, and will work with base commanders to investigate allegations of abuse.

St. Petersburg Strategy Center
$51,000*
To develop a network of public policy centers in North and Southwest Russia. It will conduct an analysis of local administrative reform in the project regions; carry out a training program for regional public policy experts, NGO representatives, and local government officials; and launch local civic advising and monitoring projects in cooperation with project partners.

Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia
$50,000*
To monitor human rights violations in the army, and to operate legal aid reception offices for soldiers and young men of draft age in Moscow, Murmansk, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Sochi, and Khabarovsk. Additionally, Soldiers’ Mothers will collect, analyze, and publish data on human rights violations and on the implementation of federal laws forbidding such abuse.

Vozrozhdenie
$70,000
To help voters identify when they are receiving dubious information, to help voters defend themselves in the event their rights are violated, and to improve the quality of information available to voters in Pskov oblast. Vozrozhdenie will organize a variety of public events for voters, including lectures and meetings with candidates, and complement them with a program of research, analysis, and publication.

Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM)
$75,000*
To strengthen existing networks of youth human rights organizations and promote the development of a core group of young human rights activists. Through support of YHRM’s work, the Endowment makes a concrete contribution to democracy in Russia and the CIS by helping young people become more active members of the region’s pro-democracy movement.