Green Brush, the all-Russian career guidance project supported by SIBUR has drawn to a close

15 october 2021

Moscow’s Interfax news agency hosted a press conference by the project’s organizer, Green Brush, the Foundation for Supporting Career Guidance at Schools. The event’s topic was formulated as "Environment and Safety: How Schoolchildren Shape the Agenda of the Future".

At the press conference, representatives of non-profit organizations and business entities, as well as participants of the Green Brush Foundation’s programs, discussed the role of schoolchildren in shaping a safety culture and responsible attitude toward the environment. The speakers evaluated young people’s attitude toward the environment and highlighted some of the key trends in developing environmental education, while also attempting to answer the question of "Why should schoolchildren become safety leaders?

The event was opened by Vera Kuzubov, President of the Green Brush Foundation. She shared that during the project’s four years it had brought together 11,000 participants and more than 500 volunteers, and as a result, the schoolchildren who advanced to the finals of the "Green Brush" contest had come up with more than 30 environmental initiatives. The project’s main goals include: raising future leaders, developing local communities, helping children with self-fulfillment, and with building a better future. The Foundation’s President also gave some statistics: each day, about 2,500 accidents involving children occur worldwide, of which more than 80% could have been prevented by nurturing a safety culture in our societies. This is Green Brush’s major ambition.

As for plans for further development of the project, they include the following: expanding regional coverage, increasing the length of time spent working with its participants, raising the intensity of interactions with inclusive institutions and communities.

When you arrive to do work in a new region, you have to interact with local activists. Collaboration makes us stronger. It's nice to see when a non-profit organization loves its region and does everything in its power to develop and improve it. And so, we will keep looking for such activists and organizations out in the regions, Vera Kuzubov shared.

Elena Belskaya, Head of Government Relations and Social and Economic Projects at ZapSibNeftekhim, described how and why SIBUR supported Green Brush’s project. The company had been looking for new tools and ways to develop a safety culture among its employees that would not be confined to just what’s happening on its facilities’ grounds. And it came to the conclusion that one of the most important platforms where such a culture can be nurtured is family: there, both children and parents contribute to developing a responsible attitude toward their actions, including their treatment of the environment.

Thanks to the Green Brush project we saw that children, as they learn the rules of safety in life and in the environment, communicate this culture to their families through very simple, basic concepts and actions. And this is something that then gets further reinforced in adults as responsible behavior in their everyday lives and at work, Elena Belskaya concluded.

Rashid Ismailov, Chairman of the All-Russian Non-Profit Organization "Russian Ecological Society", shared his opinion that many projects now have a tendency to imitate, to resort to formulaic and superficial approaches to performing the environmental work. As an example, some understand it as only something narrow-focused such as separate waste collection. However, to achieve tangible results one has to operate with a long-term goal in mind, building a sustainable future through the new generation, and teaching younger people to approach environmental protection in an intelligent and informed way.

Eco-subbotniks should become a thing of the past: they are a sign that we have no environmental culture, Rashid Ismailov explained.

Mikhail Bolotin, a fourth-grade student at School 42 in Tomsk and a finalist of the Green Brush project, also took the floor at the press conference. Mikhail shared with the participants the results of a sociological survey on the topic of the environment that he conducted among his classmates. It helped him realize that Mikhail's peers still have some room for expanding their knowledge.

This is because at school there is no dedicated ecology class. The students can get any additional information only at homeroom events or from volunteers, Mikhail Bolotin explained.

After returning home, the student plans to conduct a homeroom lecture on environmental challenges together with his teacher.

Pavel Kurochkin, Head of Labor Protection, Environmental, Industrial and Fire Safety Department at NIPIGAZ JSC, talked about one of the main business challenges, a lack of qualified personnel fully compliant with contemporary market and professional requirements. The speaker expressed his hope that the Green Brush will help children develop strong competencies for the future.

At the end of the press conference, the floor was taken by Artem Smolokurov, a curator of a priority focus area at the Governor's Center Stronger Together (Arkhangelsk Oblast), and a representative of the Clean North = Clean Country movement, to present information about an environmental contest organized together with the Governor's Center: of the 243 projects presented to the contest 71 emerged as winners, and 14 of them were focusing on school education. According to Artem Smolokurov, one has to show children in an easy-to-see way why it is important to take care of the nature and how exactly one can do it better.

This is a goal that is especially relevant for remote provincial areas, because it takes a long time for information to travel from Severodvinsk to other small towns and settlements. Our movement is involved in implementing a project titled "The Environment" that seeks to ensure that children in remote areas can get this information faster, Artem Smolokurov commented.

Green Brush turned four in 2021. On October 7, Museon Park in Moscow hosted the All-Russian career guidance project’s final stage. At a dedicated ceremony, twenty-four winners of the project’s creative contests representing 11 regions of Russia were presented with their awards. In 2021, the project was implemented as part of SIBUR's Formula for Good Deeds social investment program.