Internet courses for Uralic Peoples' Youth in Russia

The first Internet seminar in Yoshkar-Ola, the Republic of Mari El

The first Internet course for Finno-Ugric youth NGOs of the Russian Federation took place in Yoshkar-Ola, Republic of Mari El, on December 20–28, 2001. This project was initiated by the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN) and was aimed at creating a network of youth NGOs of Finno-Ugric Peoples.

The seminar took place in the premises of Valentin Kolumb Museum and Centre and the editorial offices of the international Finno-Ugric newspaper “Kudo+Kodu”. The purpose of the Mari-language course was to develop computer skills of people active in Mari youth organisations, to create web sites of NGOs in the Mari languages as well as sites on specific topics, to prepare a list of new computer connected terms in the Mari language and to distribute it, to adapt of the native languages from Cyrillic script to the Latin alphabet. The prerequisites for participation were knowledge of the native Mari language, age below 30 years, knowledge of basic PC user skills as well as activity in local NGOs.

The first Internet course was for young activists of grassroot level youth NGOs in the Republic of Mari El. The seminar leader was Guennadi Salmianov, Bachelor of Arts, University of Tartu, and its participants included Margarita Isaeva (Student Section of "Mari Ushem"), Vasili Petrov (the youth social organisation "U Vij"), Ruslan Mityakov (the Youth social organisation "Rvezylyk"), Sergey Ivanov (the Mari national newspaper "Kugarnya"), Anatoly Petrov (the Youth social organisation “Mari Chang”), Andrey Vasiliev (Korkatovo school, district of Morko, Mari-El), Svetlana Kushakova (Korkatovo school), Sergey Saveliev (the Hill Mari district Youth Union), Andrey Yuzykbaev (the Youth Department of the administration of Mishkini district of the Republic of Bashkortostan), Alexey Ishpaev (the Mari youth social organisation "Üzhara" in Izhkar, the Udmurt Republic), Laid Shemier (the newspaper "Kudo+Kodu").

All in all 9 people from within the bounds of the Republic of Mari El itself and 2 people from other regions were present at the seminar. The people from the Sotnur school of Volzhsk district of the Republic of Mari El and representatives of the Finno-Ugric youth organisation "AORE" of the Nizhni Novgorod oblast unfortunately could not come.

The first of the difficulties during the course was the different level of participants’ knowledge of computer and the Internet. The organizers were forced to separate two groups according to their level of knowledge, one of them being for beginners. For the effective work and because of the lack of time the participants had prepared the text and illustration materials for the future Web site in advance. At the same time, many organisations did not have their establishing documents, their history or other materials in electronic version, thus it was decided to put these data to the web sites later, once they would be ready.

During the course the basic carcass of the web-sites was produced for the following institutions:

the Student Section of "Mari Ushem",

the Youth social organisation "Rvezylyk",

the Korkatovo school,

the Hill Mari district Youth Union ,

the Youth Department of the administration of Mishkini district,

the Mari Youth social organisation "Üzhara".

It was decided to put the created youth sites online to the site of the newspaper "Kudo+Kodu" at the address: http://www.kudokodu.mari-el.ru/MST/ and to put links to the home pages of the Mari youth organizations under the banner the Mari Younger Generation. The home page of the youth social organisation “Mari Chang” will come online at the same place. The "Kugarnya" being a government-owned newspaper will look for opportunities to get online on the official domain of the Republic http://www.mari-el.ru/.

Of all the Web sites prepared at the seminar, it is worth to note the richness of materials and fashion of the web site of the Student Section of “Mari Ushem”. In addition to the basic information about the organization and its activities, there is the online version of the second issue of the newspaper “Student Ilysh”, published by the organization itself. The Web site of the Mari youth organization in the Udmurt Republic “Üzhara” has a good design. The achievements of the participants from the Korkatovo school are also worth to mention. The young people also had the chance to get to know what the other organisations are up to at the seminar. Classes were held on the concrete topics: the usage of the Latin alphabet for the Mari language in the Internet and on new terminology in the Mari language (computer neologisms).

Continuation for the project

In year 2002, the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples is ready to support the second seminar, planned to be held in Udmurt language in Izhkar, the Udmurt Republic, and a third one in Erzyan and Mokshan languages in Saransk, the Republic of Mordovia. The course in Izhkar is being organized in line with the schedule and using the experience of the Yoshkar-Ola seminar. Youth NGOs interested in the Udmurt Republic include: the All-Udmurt Association "Udmurt Kenesh" (2 applicants), the Udmurt Youth social organization "Shundy" ( 3 applicants), the Izhkar City Youth Movement "Eric" (3 applicants), the Udmurt organization “Demen” (2 applicants), the Udmurt youth group working at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Bashkortostan (1 applicant), Udmurt-language schools in the Republic of Tatarstan (1 applicant), from the Republic of Mari-El (1 applicant), and from the Kirov, Perm and Sverdlovsk oblast (1+1+1 applicants), all in all 10 persons from the Udmurt Republic itself and 6 persons from other regions are planned to be at the seminar.

However, the Association will have the funds to arrange not more than two seminars in the year 2002. We think it is very important that the network in Internet could start its work as soon as possible, at least before the year 2004, when the 6^th Congress of Association and the 4^th World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples will take place in Tallinn. An earlier start would means that the Association would be able to contribute more information to the local grassroot organizations and common people. But not all the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia could be covered by the project in the conditions with only one or two seminars per year.

According to the working plan of the Association for the year 2002, we have been going to organize the second Internet seminar, May 2002 in the Udmurt Republic with funds applied from the Action Support Scheme - Small Grants Program of the International Youth Parliament, Australia, Oxfam/Community Aid Abroad 3.1/25 Cooper Street. Surry Hills NSW 2010, Tel +61 2 8204 3900, Fax +61 2 9280 3426, [email protected]; and for the third Internet seminar in the Republic of Mordovia in September 2002 we are applying for money from YouthActionNet Awards.

We invite all Finno-Ugric NGOs in Russia to organize Internet courses for Finno-Ugric youth within the MAFUN Internet project. Prerequisites for participating the project are: native teacher with wide knowledge of computing and Internet plus good skills of the Finno-Ugric language used in teaching; detailed project plan, build up with assistance of MAFUN Bureau. For further information we ask you to turn to Bureau Secretary Konstantin Zamiatine, tel +358-50-3593950, e-mail [email protected]