23.10.2023In May-June 2023, 79 first-year undergraduate students completed their mandatory social internships. Now, in their second year of study, the students have passed the baton of social volunteering to the first-year students.
The event was attended by Irina Kolesnikova, Dean of undergraduate programs, IBS; Pavel Fedosov, Head of youth projects of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation; Tatiana Volkova and Ilya Artemyev-Sysoev, coordinators of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation; Anastasia Sokolova, coordinator of the Danilovtsy volunteer movement; Zemfira Galimullina, Head of social internship of IBS.
Yuri Belanovsky, Head of the Danilovtsy volunteer movement, as well as Nikolay Erokhin and Yulia Zenina, leaders of the Danilovtsy Online project, participated online.
Prof. Kolesnikova Irina Vladimirovna, Dean of undergraduate programs: “Compassion, emotional exchange and the ability to understand other people are very rare now. The world is becoming more and more complex, disasters are raging, people are becoming more lonely. What our friends from the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation and the Danilovtsy Movement are doing is a great thing, and we are very glad that our students have joined the cause of social volunteering. Many thanks to all the mentors who devoted their time and soul, and equipped our 2nd year students with tools that will help build relationships with people in difficult situations in the future. And may students not only retain the charge of humanism and morality, but also pass it on to another generation.”
Yuri Belanovsky, Head of the volunteer movement “Danilovtsy”: “I am delighted with how students are doing. Thanks to the “Danilovtsy Online” project the students were able to see for themselves, that the online format was just as effective and important way of communication as face-to-face communication. The students connected with institutions in remote regions of Russia, to special wards, where it is difficult to actually come, and it turned out to be a miracle. I would like to say words of gratitude to Irina Vladimirovna and Zemfira. Behind student participation there are two huge mechanisms: your school with its formalities and our organizations, where a lot of gears are turning. And to put the whole project together, it took some kind of genius of mind - to come up with and put together this structure so that everything would work.”
Pavel Fedosov, Head of youth projects at the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation: “After the students’ presentations, we began to understand each other better. Students virtually visited a closed area where ordinary people do not go. I want students to understand that we live in a very complex society where there are non-overlapping worlds, for example, psychoneurological institutions, of which there are 500 in our country and approximately 160 thousand people live there, and many other microworlds - nursing homes, orphanages. And I would like for the students, when they graduate and begin to engage in professional activities, to be able to feel this complexity. I hope this experience will help them share our values - that different people in society should be connected, be responsible for each other, help each other and not be indifferent. This makes our society more humane and united.”
Zemfira Galimullina, Head of social internship at IBS: “This year I really liked the informal attitude of the teams. In our chat, where students talked about their difficulties and victories, the most interesting thing was to observe how their emotions transformed. It was an incredible exchange of positive thoughts, ideas, reflections and insights. Every day we received streams of feedback with worries about failures, regrets that we didn’t have time to tell something, or, on the contrary, we shared our joy that the mentors praised us, or how well the mentees received the event. A flurry of emotions and an excellent result. The exchange of emotions took place!”
