Since 2017 till now more than 230 undergraduate students of the IBS bachelor programs did a summer social project as part of volunteer groups of the Danilovtsy Volunteer Movement. The students engaged in the following activities:
- helping homeless people at Paveletsky railway station
- writing to prisoners
- helping children in the multicultural integration center "SAVA"
- helping children of the Orphanage-Boarding School No. 28
- helping children of the Orphanage-Boarding School No. 24
- helping children of the Orphanage-Boarding School No. 15
- helping sick children at the National Medical Research Center of Neurosurgery
- helping sick children at the National Medical Research Center of Pediatric Hematology
- helping sick children at the Dmitry Rogachev Institute of Oncology and Immunology
- helping sick children at the Russian Children's Clinical Hospital (RCCH)
- helping sick children at the Morozov Children's City Clinical Hospital
- helping patient the Psychoneurological are home № 30
- studying the work of a volunteer organization at the office of the "Danilovtsy Volunteer Movement ".
Students' reports on the social project demonstrate how their worldview changes and expands as a result of this experience. View a sample report HERE
Quotes from student reports:
Eduard Israelian: "Having met the homeless, I can say that I did not expect people to be so kind and sincere. Each of the people thanked us for everything and wished us only good things".
Mkheyan Zinaida: "Initially I wanted choose another place instead of the Institute of Neurosurgery. BURDENKO, because it is very difficult for me to see sick children. I just wasn't ready. However, after I met the children, all my anxiety and fear disappeared. We spent a very nice day with these wonderful kids".
Alena Kolesnikova: "The most difficult thing for us in this project was control our emotions that arise in the process and pour out so as not to offend the people, for whom we felt so much empathy and a desire to help and support".
Kukava Nika: "During one of our discussions we talked about good and evil, and the curator of our project told us about why prisoners write to the monasteries and how and why they end up in prison. We talked a lot about God, about people and their sins, as well as about what drives people to sin. After a long conversation, we decided to read the letters and share our impressions. "Correspondence with prisoners" turned out to be a very interesting experience, and none of us even expected that we would be so carried away by a conversation about God".
Krasnova Anastasia: "I also appreciated the importance of visiting the office of the Danilovtsy Volunteer Movement, because there we gathered with several other groups, and each of us shared their impressions of the places we visited. Each had a truly emotional story about the real problems they came to see. Each story was filled with something real, stories about children that students made friends with or became especially close. Some students could not hold back tears".
Dmitry Shchurov: "Probably the hospital named after Rogacheva made the strongest impression on me. It so happened that while we were taking the inventory (colored paper, pencils, etc.), our curator took us to a class where teenage patients were rehearsing their prom. It was at this moment that I felt a heaviness in my heart. To live their whole life within four walls, to go outside and eat on a schedule, and what after ... I am grateful for such an experience, bitter, but undoubtedly valuable".
Marina Kazantseva: "Having entered the university, I was pleasantly surprised that the Academy offers a huge number of volunteer practices in completely different fields. It all started with volunteering at the well-known Gaidar Forum. I must admit that it was extremely difficult, but very interesting. However, the desire to prove myself in volunteering in the social sphere never left me. I wanted to understand what it is like to help those in need".
Tsacheva Gabriela: "Volunteering is strength. It's human. For real. Valuable. Important. How can goodness affect life? When someone does something good to another, he looks at life from the bright side, with hope and a desire to move on. With the thought that there will be someone who will help him if he needs it. It is also the goal of the volunteer to act positively for other people around the world by helping them in different ways. Thanks to the social project and the Danilovtsy volunteer movement, I saw the world with different eyes. Although I used to volunteer in my hometown, Bulgaria, sometimes I forget that there is another world - a world of people who need help from others".
