I have been actively volunteering for a few years. I have helped refugees, collaborated on human rights projects, organised charity events, and done other interesting things. I have always been involved in other people's projects. Then, a year ago, I realised that I had everything I needed to start my own project. Today, I would like to share this experience 🙌
Nodesk School
I am the co-founder of a non-profit educational project Nodesk School. We are a community of tutors who offer free online lessons to Russian schoolchildren whose relatives are victims of government repression (political prisoners or those who have been persecuted for political reasons). We help these children follow the school program, learn languages, and prepare for exams. This may not be obvious, so let me explain why we do this and why this kind of help is needed.
What is the problem?
Political Persecution
Russia has a long and unfortunate history of political persecution. There is not much open data, almost everything we have is provided by investigative projects. One such project is Avtozak Live, which is compiling a database of cases of political persecution in Russia. The earliest case in the database is from 1993, and there are now more than 8000 individuals on their list. I was working on a report about Repressions in Russia during the War, focusing on the persecution of Russian anti-war protesters.According to the data, more than 5200 people have been politically persecuted since 24 February 2022. The number has increased since the report was published in February.
All of these people have families, relatives, children and younger siblings. Supporting a political prisoner financially and emotionally is hard (paying for lawyers, medical help and supplies). While there are wonderful projects that support political prisoners directly, there are not that many that support their families.
Education
The average Russian school rarely provides a high level of education, so the tutoring market is already large. For example, one of our students requested help with English lessons. We found out that she wasn't having any problems learning, but during lessons at school they were "discussing Russia in Russian" 🙃
Moreover, paying for tutors is expensive, especially if help is needed in more than one subject. Some of our students' families were forced to leave Russia, so they don't really have access to school. These children need help with almost all subjects.
How it started
My friend Antonina, who is a logopedist and Russian language teacher, and I were already involved in supporting political prisoners. Antonina has a brother who was preparing for his graduation exams, and she finally realised how difficult and costly the process was. Moreover, we both have experience in tutoring (I offered maths classes while studying at university). This made us recognise that we had the skills and resources to help, and we started inviting volunteers to join our team.
How it's going
We have just finished our first school year, from September to May. Our students are currently taking their final tests and exams. We're extremely proud of our achievements and ready to share some statistics:
- We provided 578 free lessons
- Our students ranged from the 2nd to the 11th grade (the 11th grade is the graduation grade in Russia).
- We were requested to:
- prepare for the graduation exams for secondary and middle school students
- help with homeworks
- all-year support
- help with particular topics
- The most popular subject was Maths, but also we helped with:
- Physics
- English
- Russian
- French
- Informatics
It was such a busy year, but we plan to do even more! 💪