Rostov Region strengthens people's credit of militia

The project "We know our rights. And you?", realized in the Rostov Region by the Union "Women of Don Region", has promoted stronger trust of the population to law enforcement bodies, as Valentina Cherevatenko, leader of the Union, believes.

"Sociological studies indicate a high degree of a mutual distrust between citizens and employees of law enforcement bodies; this was the problem targeted by the Union "Women of Don Region" in its project "We know our rights. And you?" Ms Cherevatenko explains.

The project was held in Novocherkassk in 2005-2007. "Changes of attitude between citizens and militiamen of Novocherkassk were promoted by joint conferences, seminars, training sessions, and also the information campaign "Hi, I'm your district militiaman", as Valentina Cherevatenko has added.

The campaign "Hi, I'm your district militiaman" was aimed to change the attitude of the youth to the work of district militiamen. To achieve this, special groups were formed and trained among young people of Novocherkassk; they visited educational institutions of the city and discussed the work of district militiamen with their peers.

All these actions were accompanied by a massive affection in popular youth TV and radio programmes, discussions in chats and forums. The project "Hi, I'm your district militiaman" was finalized by a youth show, in the course of which militiamen and young people cooperated not like potential parties in a conflict, but more as friends.

The participants of the seminar, which was held on December 11-14 in Sochi, where the report on the project was presented, agreed in the opinion that the project was a notable example of a non-standard, innovative view on the work of militia.

Andrey Tkachenko, for "Caucasian Knot"