Building Support Networks For Chechen and Russian Grassroots Activists

by Gwendolyn Whittaker

The International Committee for the Children of Chechnya (ICCC) was founded in February 1996 to work on behalf of child victims of the war in Chechnya. The Committee supports and publicizes the work already being done by Chechen and Russian grassroots groups that have organized to demand a peaceful end to the conflict, and helps provide for the basic and emergency needs of all civilians, especially children. The decision to focus on children was visceral; who could possibly watch what is happening to Chechnya's children and not respond? But children are always part of something larger-a family, a community, a people-and ICCC's work intersects with the work of others approaching related issues from a more broadly humanitarian, human rights or non-violence perspective.

Two projects recently undertaken by ICCC illustrate the group's twin goals of making the war's victims more visible and providing direct practical support. ICCC is organizing an exhibition of work by photojournalists and drawings by Chechen children, which will be shown both in Moscow and in Boston during 1997. The Committee has been overwhelmed by positive responses from photojournalists, many of whom are frustrated that so much of their work from Chechnya never gets shown. They have been deeply personally affected by what they have seen. The children's drawings show that this war isn't happening to abstractions, it's happening to real children.

ICCC was approached by the Centre for Peacemaking in Moscow and asked to help support the establishment of respite camps in the North Caucasian republic of Adygea, where groups of children from the war zone can be brought for a few weeks at a time. This project is also supported by the Union of North Caucasian Women, the Union of Women of Adygea, the Union of Women of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria and the Committee of Soldier's Mothers. The organizers received funding to run an initial camp session at the end of August 1996, and plan to run a full camp season beginning in the spring of 1997.

In keeping with the Committee's goal to give activists and aid workers in Russia and Chechnya a point of contact with people in the US interested in helping their work, ICCC is working to establish a US support network for the respite camp. The Committee is confident that there are many organizations and individuals in the US who want to '"do something" about Chechnya and are looking for concrete opportunities. ICCC can be contacted for more information on the camp and for suggestions about ways groups in the US can help suppport it.

Gwendolyn Whittaker is chair of the International Committee for the Children of Chechnya.

The International Committee for the Children of Chechnya, 124 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 200 North, Cambridge, MA 02138; ph: (617) 576-5708: fax: (617) 547-1431; <iccc@igc.apc.org>