September 2001 NEWSLETTER
Coordinator Nancy M. Mendenhall
P.O. box 1141 Nome, Alaska 99762
(907) 443-2455
nfnmm@yahoo.com
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For specific information about our direct mailing network and how to mail gifts: www.uuff.org/chukotka.htm
24 September 2001
It would have been great to be able to start this newsletter with some upbeat news, and I did start that way, but then the world crisis happened and now it is hard to focus on Chukotka. But many groups have contacted us to say they are going ahead with their fall mailings. So I will report what the latest is from that corner of the stricken world.
But first I need to tell you that we have received a long awaited shipment
of over 115 ski jackets from the head office of the American Friends Service
Committee. Now we need to raise the funds to get them across to the
village boarding high schools. We can send some as travelers go across,
but it would be nice to hurry them along as winter is arriving in Chukotka.
Due to the increase in postal rates we are short this year. Yet I feel
awkward to be asking if you can help with
this when so many families have suffered the worst possible this month
and need our help too. And our supporters have been very faithful.
Well, do what you can! Six almost new jackets can go for $48. And
many thanks.
The news from Chukotka: All of the villages in the Providenskii region have received their quota of fuel and food to the village stores for the year, or it is right now on its way. We assume that the same improvement is happening in the other villages as well! Government salaries (most of the salaries in a village) are being paid on time. Can you imagine the difference to families who suffered without basic necessities for years, each year worse, especially from 1998 to 2000! Of course there are many snags along the stream as Chukotka struggles to swim out of its swamp. Governor Roman Abramovich does not control everything; much of the broken infrastructure is controlled federally, and economic development is much more difficult than shipments of aid. Unemployment in any village is still very high. Pensions are still a tiny fraction of what people expect here, only enough for a few food basics. The village clinic system has to be rebuilt; there are no safe water systems, TB and alcoholism are epidemic, the reindeer herds that sustain most of the villages need to be rebuilt, etc.
The governor is looking far beyond the immediate emergencies he faced when he took office. Now there are worries about which way development will take? Will there be environmental safeguards? Will the village subsistence life be protected? Will Native people build strong organizations to speak for them? Will the poor in the towns get their needs attnded to, or will a class structure keep them down? Will rapid change bring worse social disorder, or will all of these concerns take a page of wisdom from the histories of other circumpolar nations. Right now the citizens of Chukotka are looking to their new governor to solve gigantic problems. Alaskans, especially, should be willing to help in anyway we can as called upon. Right now a new fish processing plant is up and running in Anadyr'. Icelanders came to the Chukotskii and Providenskii regions to give assistance on tapping the hotsprings there for heating systems. Where the federal bureaucracy is involved things move more slowly. There is still trouble with international flights in and out of Anadyr' Airport. It may be a year before it is officially an international airport. Customs rules, if anything, have tightened in their application.
These improvements do not mean much change for AFOC as our main item we mail has been winter clothing, followed by nets and school supplies. Villagers who write us tell us there is still little in the way of clothing in the stores, or anything much except food and fuel. We get many thank you letters now that people have a few cents for postage, and the main thing asked for in these personal notes is boots/shoes, followed by children's clothing. We stick some basic school and sewing supplies in each box and will continue to send fishing supplies as we have funds to. The net webs for this fall have already gone out. We got many donations of yarn and stitchery materials recently. Thank you all ! We thank all of the people who responded so well to this request and to Stitchery Magazine for publishing it!
***We could also accept used but usable ice fishing (trout) lures from any retired fishermen!
The AFOC network, together with the Russian Far East Task Force
and V. Etylin's Polar Star aid groups, have, since fall 1999, reached 28
of 42 villages with fish nets and by end of this fall 33 villages' families
in need, or village schools, will have received clothing. We started with
only three villages receiving assistance from Alaska. Each family on the
"in need" list gets at least one box but many hav gotten two, three or
four. Our web operated network also continues to send regular
school supplies, newborn baby clothes to hospitals, and clothes and
supplies to the regional orphanage.
Until the regulations problems at the Anadyr airport are straightened
out, parcel post continues to be our method. Of course we sent the
usual large number of boxes to St. Lawrence Island this summer for the
Chukotkans to pick up there when they came for their conferences, and this
will continue, kindness of Rowes and Bering Air. When you consider that
all of the labor, storage, packing and most of the supplies is volunteer
for the postal effort, the cost per box is not so great as it
appears. Again we thank the many people who support us with funds
for postage! A special thanks to the volunteers, who come to Nome to work
on the Nome UMC church each summer, for their donations. Without
these cash donations, nothing could get mailed. And I should point out
that the people in our network--about 25 groups--pay for the postage on
their own mailings. Again we thank the unsung heroes who developed the
websites for us that make it all work!
We have about 20 families left in the village we are working on now and we will have completed our goals set for this fall. If any of you would like to sponsor one of these families directly, please let me know! It is very rewarding to get the personal thank you letters.
Yours for world peace, understanding, and sharing. Terrorists are born
of people in deep want.
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