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News, January 2012

The Program “Youth Votes for Health!” is Continuing in Belaya Kalitva

The second phase of the Alcoa Foundation Program “Youth Votes for Health!” was launched in January 2012. Under this Program, which has begun in 2011, new outdoor fitness sites will be opened in  2012  in the city of Belaya Kalitva and in Belokalitvensky Raion.

In December 2011, the Program partners – the Fund for Sustainable Development (FSD), which has developed the program and is currently implementing it; the Public Relations Department of Alcoa Metallurg Rus; and Belaya Kalitva Committee for Sports examined potential areas where outdoor fitness machines will be installed.

However, the goal of the program is not only to provide fitness grounds for local schoolchildren and community members that they can use in their free time, but also to actively promote healthy lifestyles. That is why the following activities have been included in this phase of the Program: a contest for developing and introducing electives on the subject of health (including lessons for socializing children with limited physical abilities) in local schools; a contest for the best hymn of the Program; organizing opening celebrations of fitness sites; and workout demonstrations.

Involving children and youth with limited physical abilities into Program activities is a new component of this effort. The potential areas of work were discussed during a meeting between FSD representative Elena Bondarchuk and activists of the National Association of the Handicapped (VOI) and the Red Cross from Belaya Kalitva - Tatyana Arakcheeva and Irina Kuzminskaya – and also Vera Kulincheva, chair of VOI’s branch in Sinegorka settlement.

For several years now, participants in Alcoa Foundation programs together with volunteers from Alcoa Metallurg Rus have been organizing charitable parties for children who study at home and teaching them basic computer skills and photography. Plans for 2012 include training seminars for high school students and city youth on such topics as “accessible environment” and “city of equal opportunities”, where they will learn about modern methods and techniques of working with the handicapped. This will help form a group of volunteers in the city for helping children with limited physical abilities.

Young VOI activists, such as Tatyana, who became the winter of the regional table tennis wheel-chair competition, will create their own “environment of equal opportunities” in Belaya Kalitva together with local volunteers.

The Program “Youth Votes for Health!” is opened for all residents of Belaya Kalitva who have become aware of the benefits of healthy lifestyles for them and their children.