Tolerance Center: Creating an environment for a positive dialogue

Stanislav Usachev,
Head of International Program,
Tolerance Center,
Russia

The Tolerance Center, established in 2012 at the Jewish Museum in Moscow is a unique project for Russia. Its mission is to create environment for positive dialogue between people of different cultures, religions and perspectives, promoting the idea of tolerance in the area of ethnic and social relations, towards people with disabilities, at school, at work and in the family.

Nowadays officially called ‘Federal Research and Methodology Center for Psychology and Tolerance Education’ is the leading Russian institution that provides research, methodology and program design through implementation of innovative education approaches in the area of tolerance, integration of migrants, interaction of social and ethnic communities, diversity & inclusion and bulling prevention. The Center also is an integral part of the Jewish Museum – a modern, state-of-the-art venue that welcomes international forums, trainings, public lectures and expert round tables.

Tolerance Centre implements its programs in close partnership with federal and regional authorities of the Russian Federation in charge of the policies in education, youth affairs, regional politics and culture.

Cooperation with Russian and international corporate partners, including Sberbank, Severstal, Gazprom, Google, WWF, FIFA and UNESCO is built around implementation of diversity & inclusion policies, staff development and corporate social responsibility programs.

Currently, the Tolerance Center has in its portfolio more than 150 interactive training programs that run in 81 regions of the Russian Federation.

Annually, Tolerance Centre’s vocational training and professional development programs cover more than 1 500 teachers, psychologists and youth workers from across Russia. More than 120 000 education specialists and parents take online and short-term courses, 20 000 schoolchildren and college students participate in the interactive classes at the educational site of the Tolerance Center.

The Tolerance Center project highlights include:

“Working at the Crossroads of Cultures”
A program to facilitate socio-cultural adaptation and integration of migrant workers in Moscow is to be launched in November 2021.

The program addresses employees of the State Communal Services Company who directly manage and communicate with migrant workers. Russian managers of multi-ethnic work teams are trained to support the sociocultural integration of their migrant colleagues.

FIFA 2018

Football without Discrimination: Creating a Nondiscriminatory Environment for the 2018 FIFA World Cup™.

Development and implementation of a comprehensive program of face-to-face and online training for 27,000 people: FIFA and Russian Organizing Committee staff, volunteer coaches and volunteers, stewards and caterers. The Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation held an all-Russian lesson “Football without discrimination”, which covered 64 regions of Russia.

Project “Culture.Inc.”
Human communication is the key element of accessibility
www.kulturainc.ru

Development of a simulated online training platform to help the staff of cultural venues and volunteers learn how to correctly communicate with people with disabilities. During the training, the user is put into situations of interaction with people with disabilities that might have happened in a museum, library, theater, etc.

About 32,000 students from 81 subjects of the Russian Federation completed the course modules. In 2021-22, the Center will launch three more in-depth courses as a part of the platform.

“A Safe World” Project
A series of interactive lessons for schoolchildren aimed at preventing bullying, xenophobia and extremism.

“City of Discovery”
A program of interactive workshops for schoolchildren that introduces them to innovative industries and teach them how to discover their inner traits and how to locate personal development opportunities in the city environment.

In the plans for the 2022 – 23, Tolerance Center has vocational training programs for the secondary school teachers and psychologists in prevention of bullying, xenophobia and extremism; an immersive multimedia exhibition addressing the social problem of unreported violence and its victims; equity and diversity in the workplace training, helping members of socially vulnerable and undervalued groups celebrate their work achievements.

Tolerance Center is keen on launching its international cooperation with the foreign academic institutions, NGO’s and leading experts in the area of diversity & inclusion, cross-cultural communication and bullying prevention, particularly looking forward to the time when the COVID-19 related travel restrictions are withdrawn.

www.tolerancecenter.ru

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