Professional activity

I was invited to the Department of Education and Science of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra to supervise national schools. In the early 2000s, there were 44 of them. This was the heyday in the education system of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North.

After a trip to Lapland in the Center of the Sami region (Finland) in 2004, I brought a lot of ideas, including the opening of groups in kindergartens with immersion in the language environment, the so-called "language nests", the author of the project is Annika Passanen. So we opened several groups where children communicated only in their native language. I hope that our educational organizations will soon get used to the buffet-style meals for schoolchildren and free movement around the classroom for kids.

Since 2016, I have been working as an adviser to the First Deputy Governor of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra. There is not a single corner of the autonomous region where my foot has not set foot. Over the years, I have visited all the social facilities of the territories of traditional residence and traditional economic activity of the indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North. We built bridges, unfinished boarding schools and hospitals, we achieved hot water supply in boarding schools, changed the material and technical base, provided a regulatory framework for social security for mothers whose children, due to the remoteness of the camps, do not have the opportunity to attend kindergartens, we provided an expansion of the list of medicines in school boarding schools, we achieved the provision of five to six meals a day for children in school boarding schools, we were able to launch a pre-school training system through the project "Yuriy Vella Camp School-Garden". During the pandemic period, from September 2020, 4 camp kindergartens were opened in Ugra, 18 children will receive preschool training through the mobile e-education program and will be able to easily adapt to school. We plan to open the initial stage of general education at the camp in 2021. This will allow the children of the camps to spend additional time with their parents, preserve their native language and adopt the traditions of their people.

In the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, the educational project "Yuriy Vella Camp School-Garden" (hereinafter also referred to as the project) was developed and implemented in September 2020.

The project is implemented within the framework of the national project "Education". A regulatory and legal framework has been developed, a working group has been established, and in accordance with the approved plan, field work has been carried out with the participation of executive bodies of state power, municipalities of the autonomous okrug, public, scientific and educational organizations.

The experience of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra is presented at the Expert Seminar with International Participation "The Rights of Indigenous Children: the Arctic Council" on October 8-9, 2020 in Petrozavodsk (Republic of Karelia).

The event was held with the assistance of the Charity Foundation for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East in order to analyze the legislation and existing mechanisms for the implementation of the rights and legitimate interests of indigenous children, as well as to develop recommendations for further changes and use examples of good practices of the Arctic regions of the Russian Federation for submission to the UN as a joint contribution of indigenous peoples and state authorities to the study on the rights of indigenous children, which is being prepared by the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The event was attended by Alexey Vasilyevich Tsykarev, independent expert of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Rashid Aluash, Responsible for the Joint Program of the Russian Federation and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kristen Carpenter, member of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Professor at the University of Colorado, USA, Nina Glebovna Veysalova, First Vice-President of the All-Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, Daryana Dmitrievna Maksimova, Deputy Director of the Northern Forum», associate Professor of the Department of International Studies of the Institute of Foreign Philology and Regional Studies at the North-Eastern Federal University named after M. K. Ammosov, Senior researcher of the Canada Department of the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the delegation of the Arctic region.

Educational project "Yuriy Vella Camp School-Garden", presented at the seminar by the delegation of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra, which received a positive assessment from Russian and international experts on the rights of indigenous peoples, was noted as the only project that provides not only a solution to the problems of education of children living in places of traditional residence and traditional economic activities of indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, but also a solution to the problems of the transfer of traditional knowledge on traditional management, the disappearance of languages and cultures of indigenous peoples. The expert community, including the Committee for Arctic Affairs of the Government of St. Petersburg, recommended the project for placement on the electronic platform of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives as the best project-practice for supporting the indigenous peoples of the North.

Also, the experience of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug–Yugra was presented on February 21, 2021, on the Day of Native Languages of Indigenous Peoples, by Professor of the UNESCO Department Gilvan Muller de Oliveira at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris for a wide discussion and was approved by the expert community as the most acceptable project in the education of indigenous children, especially during the pandemic.