In 2010, Director Svetlana Goronkova, the Samara regional public organisation of disabled people with MS / SORS (ARMSS’s branch), identified two problems to resolve at that time:

1.  Lack of rooms to keep statutory activities to accommodate large groups of people (show /holiday /sports events etc)

2.  P.1 required a centre for socialisation of PwMS

To that end, SORS decided to approach:

1.  Municipal executive and legislative authorities: i. Social Support and Protection Dept at Samara District Administration (SDA), ii. Property Management Department at SDA, iii. Health Department at SDA (face-to-face meetings with CEO), iv. SDA Parliament, v. SDA mayor

2.  Regional executive and legislative authorities: i. Health and social development ministry in Samara region, ii. Plenipotentiary ombudsman in Samara region, iii. Political party “United Russia” Reception, iv. Governor’s public Reception, v. Personal meeting with the governor http://ms.samaradom.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90:2010-06-24-09-39-52&catid=43:2010&Itemid=50

3.  Federal authorities: i. Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, ii. Approaching the Russian Federation PM, iii. Approaching the Russian Federation President

SORS’ proposals were to lease the basement floor of a residential building. The main problem was that a big area was requested for lease.

All methods possible were used (from face-to-face meetings and negotiations to official letters to the President and PM. We used TV, newspaper, mailing promotion materials, internet resources publications (see the example below).http://ms.samaradom.ru

PRESENTATIONS (example publication on www)

SORS held a presentation of composite Russian language editions (CRLEs) of the MSIF “MS in focus” magazine. Those who were interested got posters of the All-Russian MS Society’s electronic resources, albums to reveal activities of MS societies; the organizers gave talks on voluntary organisations capacities as public voice.

These meetings were quite busy and involved an overview of the region’s executive and legislative activities. The organisation experts had meetings in all 9 city Centres for social services (district CSS), visited  the Social Support and Protection Dept at Samara District Administration (SDA), Property Management Department at SDA, SDA Head Reception, SDA Parliament, Health an Social Protection Development Ministry of the Samara region (minister V.Kulichenko), Deputy Minister E.Khanzhin, State policy management directorate for disabled people protection, Region Parliament. In the end, we conducted a presentation in Samara region Governor V.Artyakov’s Reception. All, who were involved, were given congratulation and thank-you letters, CRLEs, presentation materials.

Among the tools used, we found that face-to-face meeting with a presentation (visual support) proved the most successful.

Some problems, while accomplishing it,