June 11 – MS Day
MS Day in Regions of Russia
Regional branches of the All-Russian MS Society held the action ’11 June – Multiple Sclerosis Day’. The key goal of the action was to raise awareness about MS in their communities as well as to provide PwMS with emotional and, sometimes, material support.
Thus, volunteers, students and members of the Society branches held the action in the cities of Krasnodar, Stavropol, Rostov, and Volgograd of the South Federal District. They would spread bands with information about MS on them in busy parts, especially near, and in, health centres. In the Kalmyk Republic, members of a religious society made up packages with grocery products and distributed them throughout the republic.
Members of the Barnaul regional branch of the Society approached sponsors to make 500 copies of the leaflet with brief information about MS, its tendencies and consequences, which they mailed to organizations and enterprises with a direct-mail service. In Ulyanovsk, they held Round Tables and meetings within the frames of the action. One of the topics for discussion was ‘Social partnership. Human health as the concern of the state and NGO’. This function was held at the Oblast Legislative Assembly. Also, the Department of Social Protection of the Population held another Round Table with the participation of President of the All-Russian MS Society Yan Vlasov. On the streets of Ulyanovsk, volunteers managed to hand out 100 white bands within the frames of the action, meanwhile 200 such bands were handed out in the city of Omsk.
One of the most popular TV channels in the Kirov oblast told about the All-Russian MS Society as well as about its branch working in the Kirov oblast. The TV channel broadcasted once again the information that there are pharmaceuticals to help PwMS live an active life.
In the Chuvash Republic, they gave emphasis to drawing the community’s attention to MS through posting informational leaflets. Besides, the volunteering participants of the action could answer questions of passers-by. On summing up the event, they offered to hold such an action again in future.
One of the ‘MS Day’ functions held in Samara on June 11 was the Creative Competition-Festival of the Disabled ‘We Stand Together’ organized by the Ministry of Health and Social Development. The festival was a demonstrative example of how people with disabilities can socially adapt, raising the tolerance in society towards disabled persons, and bringing various structures to solve disability problems.
Quite a few regional branches implemented the action for the first time. However, many people in Russia were able to get to know or learn more about MS on this day, while the MS Society branches proper had the action as their first and important experience of this kind of work.