"Committee of Civil Initiatives" set up in Stavropol Territory

The regional "Committee of Civil Initiatives", which is being established in the Stavropol Territory, prepares a number of projects, including "Centre for Civil Mutual Assistance", "School of Local Self-Administration", "Fair Trial", "Open Budget", and "Transparent Police". This was stated by members of the initiative group at the today's press conference.

Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" reported that, at present, the initiative group of the "Committee of Civil Initiatives" already consists of more than 20 persons, including leaders of public organizations, acting politicians, businessmen, scientists, and journalists.

Boris Obolenets, the group's coordinator, reported at the press conference, that at present, similar initiative groups are being established in more than ten regions of the country, including the Republic of Tatarstan, the Altai Territory, the Vologda Region, and the Ivanovo Region.

On June 26, the Committee's Congress "Civil Initiatives Time to Act", held in Moscow, made the decision to form a pool of projects to be implemented by groups of supporters of the Committee. According to Boris Obolentsev, in the short term, some of them may be also extended for the Stavropol Territory.

In particular, those projects include the establishment of the Centre "Civil Mutual Assistance", which will operate on the principle of a public office. People would be able to come there with their problems of any domestic nature, and a volunteer would be assigned to every applicant to advise him or her on contacting state agencies and to help him or her write complaints and statements and track getting responses to them.

Besides, according to Boris Obolenets, they prepare implementation of the projects to be financed from the Alexei Kudrin's Foundation. For example, MPs (current and former ones), members of the Stavropol regional group of the "Committee of Civil Initiatives", are willing to form the "School of Local Self-Administration" to seek and disseminate best practices in the sphere of municipal management.

The members of the "Committee" can take part in the project "Service for Civil Trust to Police", which is being implemented by the Stavropol Centre for Social, Political and Criminological Research. This was announced by Tatiana Pinkevich, the member of the initiative group, Director of the Centre.

According to Tatiana Pinkevich, within the project, civil volunteers are involved in activities of the police divisions to receive documents (complaints about crimes, complaints against police officers) from the population, and then, they monitor their consideration. The activist has added that establishment of similar volunteer services are stipulated by the "road map" of the second stage of reformation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) and that its main goal is "to increase public trust of the population and the police through introduction of an independent 'intermediary'."