- Thanks to the Russian-American Cultural Center in Boston raccboston.org/ three college students worked as interns every Monday during summer 2006. The students were from Smith College, Connecticut College, and Wheaton (MA) College. It wasgreat to have their help!
- We want to help start some Adaptive Resource & Support centers for students & teachers with disabilities at universities, schools & libraries in Russia & want to identify people who will help/coach/advise.
- We have a Bed & Breakfast for short-term visitors to St. Petersburg. Very convenient, comfortable, inexpensive. Contact us for details.
Plans and projects:
Looking for student volunteers/interns--
translate English-Russian, Russian-English
penpals with blind university students in Russia
help with website
raise awareness about blind students
help start adaptive tech service in Russian university
identify and connect resource people
find useful materials/use us for research project
take toys, braille devices to Russia
get used computers donated from your campus
etc.
- We started this project just one year ago. We are more committed to it than ever--of course, it wouldn't be possible without your support and assistance.
- We had our second Russian tea meeting at our house. I thought it was
very positive and pleasant and productive. We will be happy to have
another.
People had good suggestions of things for me to do. I guess I asked for it, so now I will follow up and might ask for some help. I showed Andrew the used computers from MIT in the basement that need to get to Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg. We are keeping a list of people who are planning to go there in the spring and summer. We are grateful to the various couriers who have taken computers, toys, and money already.
We shared the highlights of our trip to Russia in October/November and Harris’s trip to Michigan in November to make contact with the Lansing-St. Petersburg sister city program, which seems to be on hiatus now. - I contacted U.S. university programs that send students to St. Petersburg to study Russian and got a very positive response from one of them, so they might be taking some things with them in May/June. We met Jane, a New Hampshire artist who is introducing us to a local art museum about having Larisa's work on display! We have showed her work to a few people who bought some pieces as a contribution to the project.
- Svetlana speaks to several people in St. Petersburg every week. Two people use Skype which is free. A few people check their email only once a week or less. Some people don't have computers. Some people aren't available for her to phone with the 8-hour time difference.
- We/I would like assistance translating some texts. I have tried online automatic translators and they are not very useful.
- We are constantly updating the web site, with Leo's help. He is adding photos of M.N. Adamov, the kindergarten class, and the Watercolors Art Therapy group.
- We want to continue to expand our support group, so let us know of any suggestions. And remember, we also have a Bed & Breakfast in St. Petersburg.
- At Herzen Pedagogical University there is a department of electronic music. There are several newly admitted undergraduate blind students. Alexei, a blind graduate student in the same department, runs a local radio station from his apartment. He is a classically trained piano player who would love to have a keyboard. We have a 30-minute video clip (in Russian) about him and his radio station.
- Yulya is a specially-trained teacher of blind children
(typhlopedagogue) with 7 kindergarten students in her classroom who are all blind or
vision-impaired. Her father has been making special canes and other
adaptive devices not available commercially for her students. He
just built a special walker for one of her students with cerebral
palsy.
Her students could use some realistic animal toys and home-play toys like kitchen utensils, etc. We have been giving her a monthly stipend. She should be getting her custom-built fitness machines this month, which we made possible as a donation from a group of nurses, one of whom was a Russian student of Svetlana's. - There are 5 teachers in the Watercolors Art Therapy Group who are the only professionals in Russia who do art and movement therapy, as well as music, clay, and theater, with blind children. They have been working with students at the Grot Boarding School for the Blind on Shaumyana Avenue and are hoping to open their own Studio soon to serve more blind children.
- Chteniye Braille Press on Vasilievsky Island needs several Braille display units for its editors.
- Igor is the leading software applications developer for blind people in Russia. He distributes his innovative open systems applications to any blind people who could use them. In his day job he is a specialist in embedded systems at a major utility company. We would like to find him partnerships with creative open source developers of adaptive software.
- There is a blind graduate student at the History Department of St.
Petersburg State University who does not own a personal computer and
would tremendously benefit from having a computer and a Braille
display.
If we can get these we will pair him up with somebody in the blind community who will train him to use them. - Larisa is a blind artist, 32 years old, who uses a variety of tools and materials to create her art. She is a member of the artists & musicians group at the Rehabilitation Center for the Blind. She was recently admitted to the prestigious All-Russia Union of Artists. She would like to explore using new media and tools.
- We could use Frequent Flyer miles. Both Harris and Leo are thinking of
going to St. Petersburg in May or June.
Any contribution is tax-deductible through the Carroll Center for the Blind by using a link on this web site.
March 2006
- Svetlana and Leo and Harris were in St. Petersburg for two weeks at the end of October and beginning of November.
- we had a memorial reception for MN Adamov--had 40 people at our St. Petersburg apartment
- we attended a memorial seminar at St. Petersburg State University Department of Theoretical Physics with quantum mechanics physicists and mathematicians who worked with MN Adamov
- We met with Yulya, a teacher at the kindergarten for blind and disabled
- gave her toys for her classroom donated by Gayle Yarnall and also purchased by us in US
- she has been teaching for 13 years. She has been spending a third of her monthly salary to buy toys and materials for her class. We established an eight-month monthly stipend so she doesn't have to spend her salary.
- Met with the director of the Braille printing house "Chteniye" and
staff members
- gave them 3 computers and video magnifier (we had another computer delivered to them in September)
- arranged for them to review/publish a guide for Russian Braille readers to learn English Braille contractions written by Nick Racheotes
- had dinner at home of director (and a published poet) and his wife, both blind
- Met with Alexei, blind musician/audio engineer/ham radio operator,
enrolled in a post-graduate program at Hertzen Pedagogical University
- hoping to raise money to buy him a keyboard
- introduced him to Yulya, who invited him to meet with the parents of her students and also play for them and her kids
- Met with Larissa, blind artist, her father, and Yuri, her 83 year old
teacher
- brought selection of her art to show to people in U.S.
- arranging to publish her writing about making art in English braille
- will put link to her website (in Russian) on ours
- Met with Igor, leading software development programmer for the blind
(he has just developed a graphic program for his Braille printer)
- he agreed to be technical advisor to us
- planning to bring him & his wife Svetlana to Boston to speak to Linux software developers
- Met with Early Childhood Intervention Center staff, Viktoria and Marina
- put them in touch with people who might help them get computer monitors
- interested in contributing to their toy library
- Met with Alla and Igor, who run art therapy for blind children at
the Barding School for the Blind and privately
- put them in touch with kindergaten teacher Yulya
- arranging for them to take training, perhaps with Perkins
- putting them in touch with art therapy center "Harmony" in St. P (they hadn't heard of it)
- Met with Gennady, blind mathematician/researcher
- he passed on Kurzweil 1000 software we had sent him earlier to Igor for his review
- Also--
- Harris and Leo went to ballet Corsaro/Le Corsaire
- we took 3 people to premiere of Verdi's Nabucco, Gergiev conducting
- we took 4 people to clowns performance
- we went to Rachmaninoff festival judges' concert
- we went to dacha in the country
- we went to Pavlovsk park and Summer Palace
- we went to homes of 6 friends, including a woman who has lived in the same place for 80 years, through the Siege/Blockade, music theory professor at St. Petersburg Conservatory; Svetlana's old English teacher; 85 year old actress who spent 25 years in Gulag camps and is writing her second book about her life after Gulag
- Harris went to studio of artist friend
- went to meditation center program; evening's theme was compassion
- Harris made quick trip to Hermitage, saw great Rembrandts and armor
- checked out toy stores
- went to outdoor market
- dropped in on international table tennis tournament
- Svetlana went to school reunion
- Harris gave 3 hour seminar to personnel managers
- Harris was interviewed by business journal
- had birthday gathering for Harris
- fielded dozens of phone calls
- Leo borrowed violin but didn't get a chance to play it
- were given things to deliver to student in Boston
- were checked through U.S. Customs by a vegetarian guard
Trip Report/November 10, 2005
- we sent software--Kurzweil 1000--and a computer to St. Petersburg
- we received 3 used video magnifiers from the Carroll Center for the Blind
- Harris and Svetlana will be in St. Petersburg October-November 2005
- we had support group meeting in Boston, October 2, 2005
- the Carroll Center in Newton agreed to be a fiscal agent for MNAF
- we are registered as a nonprofit organization with Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- we met with MIT ATIC office/Adaptive Technology for Information and Computing at MIT
- we started a Board of Advisors--the first person we asked is Gayle Yarnall, president of ATC, Adaptive Technology Consulting
- we are receiving donated used computers from MIT
July-October 2005
- toured National Braille Press, Boston
- met with Perkins School for Blind
- joined Grantmakers without Borders
- linked with Russian American Cultural Center, Boston
- received software donation from Ray Kurzweil and Kurzweil Educational Systems
- launched website
- opened bank account
- announced Fund to family & friends
- collecting material on MNA
- researching services/support for blind in Russia
- developing advisory panel
- wrote article for More Than Money
- established communications with Chteniye, a publishing/printing house for the blind in St. Petersburg Russia and got a good picture of their needs
- planning office manager in St. Petersburg