Working with Youth

Yesterday we sat in on the city’s Youth Council Meeting, which included representatives from schools, school psychologists, and the town Youth Dept. They discussed the new plan for 2006-2008. In response to the problems facing kids in Chapaevsk- too much free time after school, few activities available, and bad economic circumstances, they are attempting to create a bunch of different clubs. Some will be focused on advocacy and health promotion- mostly against drugs, smoking, and HIV. The rest of the clubs are sports, culture, and leadership focused. I got the feeling that they had a few kids who are really involved and the rest, according to their stats around 500 kids, come occasionally. I admire their efforts. At least they are realistic about the situation facing them.
When they came around to asking me to speak I told them about the situation of youth in the US-that almost all such activities were organized through the school system. I told them about a typical day in high school and how focused we are on competitive sports. I’ve been talking with my colleagues at work about exercise and there is a serious felt need among people here for accessible organized sports and aerobics/dance classes etc. Otherwise the only people who use the sport center are people training to be professionals and a few local football teams.
I feel like I should do something to help them get a more accessible local athletic program organized, but I really don’t have any experience in that area other than swimming. They say that they have enough room in their facilities, just not enough “trainers”. I guess that they don’t make any money and are not willing to coach teams for free. If they could get some teams/ classes started/trained then they could eventually just have the most senior player or team captain be coach. Right? I may be going too far, beyond the root of the problem, into a whole other can of worms.
“REMONT”
Today was an exciting series of events. Typical of Russian life style is the way that they do “remont”—like remodeling only in the Russian case they mean adding another thick layer of paint over top of the 10 others coating the floor already and possibly some wall paper over the cement walls. Our boss Yulia and her colleagues at the Harm Reduction center were just finishing a remont yesterday. We were there as they hung the curtains, again this is typical. There were not enough plastic hooks left on the rod, but to put in more plastic hooks they would have had to go buy more and take the rod down. Instead, they decided to add in some improvised hooks made out of paperclips. I argued against, but not very loudly.
Then we had our lesson on how the needle exchange program works. Two of the clients came in with a plastic bag full of used needles and syringes. We watched as they loaded about 300 clean needles and syringes in to their plastic bags. I forgot to mention that we were wearing medical masks in case of Tuberculosis. Of course I wanted to know why they got to take so many. Apparently they are responsible for 15 other drug users who are squatting in the same place that they are. Most addicts here use the weaker narcotic version of heroin “Hanka”. It’s made from the left-overs of the process that makes heroin. They call them “dirty” drugs. They are a lot weaker and so the users need three or four shots of it to make a “dose” and then they need about 4 doses a day. Also because the drugs are so dirty their veins deteriorate really quickly.
We then had a long discussion about needle exchanges in the US and how they don’t sell syringes at the local pharmacy in the states. Russian like to get shots. The same medicines that we take for streppe throat orally they prefer to get intravenously. We explained how we (Americans in general) hate shots and that influences the drug use situation in the US too. Most people don’t try their first dose as an injection. They try marijuana and then work their way up. And the people who inject heroine are usually the poorest people. Anyone who can afford it prefers to sniff heroine, it’s a bit stronger but at least it’s not a shot.
Meanwhile as we’re having this discussion there is all these loud booms in the background. “Oh that’s just the explosives testing plant.” They said.  Then we try to leave at 3pm and the rest of the staff on the dermatology floor have already gone home and locked us in! It’s never a dull moment.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the jury of narcotics debate set up by high school students. It was in front of a full auditorium. I thought that they did a great job organizing it. And I think that if “social cognitive theory”- learning by the examples of others- works then they may have influenced a lot of their peers opinions and behaviors by taking a stand against drug use and informing their fellow classmates.