Providing furniture for a school in Balarus via Chernobyl Link

Wed, Apr 11th 2007 at 12:00 am- Sun, Apr 15th 2007 - 12:00 am

Report on the latest visit by Bernard Bettles to Belarus to buy funiture for a village school in Proskurni so badly affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

A great example of rotary in action working with Swanage Middle Schoo

The Head of the village school in Proskurni with the commemorative plague

Foundation Report April 2007 

OnWednesday 11th April I travelled to Belarus with Graham & Nancy Baynes who help me with Chernobyl Link, Graham also speaks Russian. I had $7500 strapped to my waist to purchase the furniture for the village school in Proskurni. On arrival at Minsk Airport we were met by Anna a friend of Grahams who took us to her flat and gave us a meal, before her husband Dima drove us to the town of Zlobin this took us three hours. We were booked into a hotel for three nights, this had all been arranged by friends Sveta & Misha who have visited Swanage with children over the last four years. On Thursday morning we were taken to the bank at 9am to exchange the dollars into Belarussian roubles and paid into the school charity account. This was all done with the help of the school Head Teacher and Sveta who came along to explain everything that was going on and what I had to sign and why. 

This took three hours as the bank had to telephone Moscow to confirm the numbers on the traveller's cheques.  On leaving the bank at 12 noon we were then driven to the offices of the Local Minister for Education who gave the Head Teacher a signed document to give to the director of the furniture factory stating that the money for the purchase of the furniture is held in the school charity account and would be transferred to the Furniture Factory account in two weeks time and that the furniture can be delivered to the school tomorrow (Friday 13th April).  We then drove to Bobruisk to visit the factory where the furniture is made. On arrival we were greeted by the Managing Director at his office where the documents from the Education Minister were handed over, these he was very happy with. He then gave us a tour of the wood working and steel metal factories. In both of these places we saw furniture in production. We went on to the warehouse where we were shown our order already packed and ready for delivery the next day. Next on to the company showrooms where we were able to see the complete range of product that they produce. We returned to the director's office for refreshment and he thanked us very much for our business and hoped we could do worked together in the future. We returned to Zlobin and our party were taken out for a meal.

 

On Friday morning we were driven to Proskurni village school where on arrival I was greeted at the gate by the Head Teacher, then presented with a large round loaf of bread and dish of salt by one of the members of staff in National costume. This is the

traditional Belarussian way of greeting important people. I then had to parade the bread to the school hall where we were greeted by the school children and the rest of the staff. The children then gave a short concert of singing and dancing. The Head Teacher then made a speech welcoming us to the school and thanking us and everyone in Swanage for their kindness and generosity in purchasing new furniture for the school. Then the Local Education Minister spoke thanking us for helping these children by buying furniture and also helping the local economy by buying from a Belarus furniture company. We were then presented with gifts made by the children and a certificate acknowledging our work. I then made a short speech thanking the school for its welcome and how when visiting the school two years ago, I saw the poor quality of the school furniture. On returning home I was asked if we could do something about it. Today we have been able to achieve this with the help of many organisations and many people in Swanage.  We thank the help give by the Belarus Embassy in London and the Local Minister of Education. I then presented the Plaque to the Head Teacher, which commemorates the occasion. All of this was recorded for local TV station. We witness the arrival of the first delivery of furniture, when this was unloaded they will return for the remainder. After which we were given a tour of the school and saw some of the work the children had be doing using recycled materials, also seeing how bad the condition of the desks and cupboards were. The cost of the project was 15,849,689 Roubles. We returned to Zlobin and in the evening where we entertained all those who had helped over the past three days along with the Head Teacher and two members of her staff. On Saturday we returned to Minsk by train ready for me to fly home on Sunday.

 

Mission accomplished.

 

If you want to find out more about the project and how you could get involved please contact Bernard Bettles via the link below.

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