Russian Disability Organization Seeks Partnership with U.S. Independent Living Center

Invatur, a disability organization in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, is looking to develop a partnership with a well-established Independent Living Center to learn about how to politically and financially operate and deliver IL services. Invatur's chairman has previously visited a few IL centers in the U.S., but those centers did not provide the range of services that they are planning to provide in a Russian city.

Invatur wants to develop a multi-service center where people can learn job skills, receive counseling, learn about and obtain assistive technology/adaptive equipment. They want to create a one-stop center where many services are available, because transportation and access is very difficult in their region. The local city government has offered to provide some financial support and the local office of the Ministry of Social Protection has offered office space in the rehabilitation hospital. Locally there are divided opinions about whether it is wise to accept free office space in a rehabilitation hospital for an independent living center. They are also planning to set up a business to provide partial financial support of their ILC programs and activities, which is a very typical approach of Russian disability NGOs.

Invatur is especially interested in partnering with a multi-service IL center with educational, vocational, computer training programs or adapted sports programs in hopes of learning how such centers can effectively deliver a wide range of services. They are aware that ILCs employ disabled people and would like to discuss the ideology and the practical experiences of employing disabled persons as service providers, managers, etc. since they are under pressure by their government partners and funders to hire non-disabled "professionals."

Since they are establishing their own ILC in 2005, Invatur quickly needs to begin receiving technical assistance and best practices in how ILCs are managed; who is responsible for determining which services are provided, including long-term planning; how to creatively identify local funding for the IL centers; what types of resources can be used to implement and deliver services; whether volunteers can be effectively used and if so, how are volunteers integrated and motivated.

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