On February 14th, a meeting was held at the American Business Center. In attendance were Mr. Jess Bratton, the Regional Coordination Advisor for USAID; Mrs. Svetlana Vasina, the RI RFE Coordinator for the U.S. State Department; Mrs. Elizabeth Houde, the Director of Operations for Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia for Kidsave International; and Mrs. Cathy Stoochnoff, the Director of the RFE Office of Kidsave International. Kidsave has been operating in Russia since 1999 with the mission to help older orphan children find Russian families. The goals of the Kidsave program in the Russian Far East are (1) implement a social marketing campaign through the media and cooperation with local government to change public attitudes and opinions about orphaned children, (2) begin a “Family Visit” model program that slowly moves children from children’s homes and institutions into family and community-based care, (3) deliver a train the trainer program for social workers, child psychologists, families, children, orphanage staff, and others, and (4) to research the current laws and policies in the RFE and help identify those laws that help support the idea of local Russian families adopting or fostering orphaned children. Kidsave currently works in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Smolensk. They hold a yearly Gala fundraising event to bring together the local and ex-pat community for the purpose of helping orphans and abandoned children. Pacific Law Co. is processing the Kidsave registration, which is expected to be completed late April. The visitors received scheduling and logistical assistance from  Coordinator Vasina

 On February 14, Jess Bratton, Regional Coordinator Advisor, USAID accompanied by Svetlana Vasina, Regional Initiative Coordinator visited the Partnership Program office in Yuzhno – Sakhalinsk. Sakhalin staff of the Program: Marina Kirsanova, Ludmila Gazieva, Svetlana Fatykhova and Larisa Golubeva shared the information on the progress status of Program. The list of Round 4 projects with short description of projects and the calendar of events (January-April) were given to J.Bratton.

On February 2 RI Coordinator met with Lyudmila Yakovleva – the Director of Economics and Oriental Studies Institute of Sakhalin State University. Ms. Yakovleva expressed her appreciation for the numerous ways in which the RI RFE and SSU have been cooperated, including visit of English Language Fellow to SSU, students involvement in IREX and AMERICAN COUNCILS FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION (ACTR/ACCELS), participation of the SSU professors in the International Visitors Programs and inviting interesting speakers. Lyudmila Yakovleva has also said that she was looking forward to further cooperating with Regional Initiative.

In compliance with a request of the Committee for International Economic and Interregional Relations, Administration of Sakhalin Region on February 1 RI Coordinator made a presentation of RI RFE programs activities for Natalia Ivanova, the Head of Development Department of Tourism. Special interest was shown in the US Government programs acting in Sakhalin region, and grant programs aimed at developing civil society and protection of environment.