"Woman plus..."Vasilisas Of All Countries, Unite!

Vasilisas Of All Countries, Unite!

By Elena Chernomazova

The Vasilisa Club of Assistance to Women's Initiatives, Education and Health has existed since 1994. Today it unites over 300 women of the most variegated trades and interests, and this number is constantly on the upgrade. The popularity of the Club is first of all due to the fact that it is permeated with an exceptionally warm and confidential atmosphere, making every woman natural and unrestrained. The human communication if here not superficial, but profound and sincere, which is rather rare nowadays in general, but is nevertheless typical of the Club. "We can speak here about ourselves honestly and candidly, like at a confession, and this helps a lot in pondering over one's own life and in changing it for the better," says Tatiana Simakina, Chairman of the Club Council. And Olga Bidinskaya, Chairman of the Vasilisa Club, joins in: "Each of us feels a friendly elbow of the other, her support. It makes every talk not just an exchange of opinions, but the best kind of a psychotherapy seance, going from the deep of the heart."

The Club members give to each other not only a moral and a psychological support, but practical assistance, too: to look for a suitable job or to establish new contacts. For example, Tatiana Simakina, who is the head of the Bratina company, informed us that "thanks to the Club, materials about our Club were printed in the press, so that many people learned about us, and new customers and partners appeared." And this kind of examples may be cited over and over again.

The Club members spend their free time to their utter satisfaction: they organize regular meetings with the renowned people - politicians, economists and specialists from different fields of knowledge - at the House of Actors. The Club members also hold different seminars themselves, doing everything on a voluntary basis. Of great success here, for instance, are the consultations, given by Lyudmila Kim, a famous healer. Such consultations are very expensive at the centre, where she is employed, but the Club members have to pay only 15 roubles for a consultation. Recently. at the request of the elderly Club members, special courses were organized to teach them the technique of falling. Many elderly people sustain grave traumas because of the falls, and it is a really important art for them to learn how to fall correctly.

Besides the communication and the arrangements for the free time, the membership of the Vasilisa Club elaborates and implements a number of socially-important programmes. For example, they have decided to set up a network of small centres for a short stay of children, which will be on at the big department stores in Moscow. In many supermarkets abroad there are such centres, where the children can play, while their mothers are unhurriedly making purchases. We hope that the Vasillisa's efforts will soon help to incarnate this idea in Moscow. The project will also provide new jobs for the unemployed women, from among whom "social mothers" will be trained. It is planned to launch the first two-week course of training for "social mothers" as soon as in May.

One of the Club's goals is to make a contribution into resolving the problem of the feminine unemployment. The Club has, in particular, concluded an agreement with a couple of organizations, engaged in the professional training of secretaries-reviewers; under these agreements the women, who have recommendations from the Club, enjoy a considerable discount on the tuition payment. After they pass through a course of the professional training, the Club helps its proteges to find a job. "We try to keep an eye on their progress, to render them moral support and give the necessary consultations," Olga Bidinskaya told us. "One of our goals is to search for and to create new jobs".

Yet another project, which the Club hopes to implement with the support of the Ministry of Labour and of the Social Development, is establishing a network of communal services outlets in the Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow, such as small laundries and dry cleaner's, which can be run by women. "We have already compiled a business-plan for this project," goes on Olga Bidinskaya. "Jointly with specialists from the employment service, we shall select the interested women, will train them and will help them launch small communal services outlets, and afterwards, they will develop on their own. We are now busy looking for the means to support this programme. And the municipal authorities will render us assistance in looking for and in registering the suitable premises."

On the photo: Olga Bidinskaya

A few words should be said about Olga Bidinskaya, the Vasilisa Club's Chairwoman. As her friends put it, she is the chief "generator and motive force of all the ideas". Olga has worked for many years on the television, leading a programme under the name of Thirty-Six and Six, which dealt with the health, a healthy way of life, with the family and the children. Then the programme was closed, but the letters and telephone calls from the television viewers went on arriving. It was then that Olga realized how urgent is the need in communication, in the existence of a specific feminine space, and - she has set up the Vasilisa Club.

The first significant event in the life of the Club was a charity conference, Honours to Woman, held jointly with the Women's Hospital of the City of Pittsburgh (USA). Subsequently such fora became an annual event, with up to 1,000 people attending.

During the conference, the participants can attend many differently profiled workgroups and discussions, and meet eminent politicians, public figures and businessmen. The peak of the conference is awarding the most worthy women, who have won success in the professional arena, in public life or in the family, with an Athena - a prestigious international premium, and with an Order of Vasilisa. The former was established by the American Chamber of Commerce, and the Order of Vasilisa was conceived by the Russian women. In this country, there have never existed feminine awards (except for the Order of the Heroine Mother and of the Order of Maternal Glory), so the Club members decided to rectify this blunder by inaugurating the Order of Vasilisa (in Greek, this name means the wise, the kingly). "We wanted the Order of Vasilisa to be a symbol of the fact that a woman, wearing it on her bosom, has achieved something in her life, and that one may turn to her for support and for assistance," explained the Club members.

Among the women, awarded with the Order of Vasilisa, is Ekaterina Kim (who has organized the rehabilitation centre Contact-1 for invalid children), Galina Sillaste, Tatiana Simakina (head of the Bratina company), Martha Merts (president of the humanitarian foundation for promoting the women's business activity) and Tatiana Smekalina (the chief forest warden in the Solnechnogorsk District, Moscow Region). This year, quite unexpectedly for the Club Chairwoman Olga Bidinskaya, the Order of Vasillisa was awarded to herself.

What do the Club members think of its future? "The Club is going to bring together all the Athenas and the Vasilisas, and elect the best woman of the planet," Tatiana Semakina says jokingly. "To be serious, each of us sees the future of the Club in a different light. On my part, I would like a house with the signboard 'At Vasilisa's' to appear in Moscow, with its door always open, so that every woman, who happens to come in, can feel cosy and comfortable there and can find something of interest for herself."