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At the end of January 2003 Stanislava Podobyeda, the teacher from a students'
center, street 28 Armeyskaya, came to the editor's office of our newspaper
and to the public consultation center "Partnership for transparrent
society". Based on the facts that Stanislava told us and the further
journalist investigation, we published an article "The last days
of the last students' center" in the newspaper "Vhoru",
#6 (19). The article told about actions of the HBK, when they fired a
teacher from the students' center due to the reduction of their staff.
The city council agreed to pay salary to the teacher, but only with one
condition - the center has to be transferred to the possession of the
city. According to the law, the center can only be tranferred together
with the building where it is situated. And the building is in the possession
of HBK (it is a part of their statute fund) and it is only possible to
transfer it to the possession of the city, if: the owner wishes so; if
it is excluded from the statute fund and given another status (now is
is considered a dormitory of family type). The center was formally closed.
And more than 150 students of the center, who come form poor, "problem"
and imperfect families, face a perspective to spend their extracurricular
time in the street. The dismissed teacher filed a claim to the court and
consideres her dismissal illegal…
After the court hearing
The teacher was represented in the court by the following people: Oleksandr
Burmagin (Coalition of NGO "Partnership for transparretn society"),
Sergiy Kirichenko (All Ukrainian public union "Civil control")
and Pavlo Maslov (deputy of the city council, memer of the Communist Party
of Ukraine). The first court hearing was postponed for the week - the
court demanded documents from HBK. But at that point it was understandable:
all the troubles with the center are happening because there is no dialogue
between the city council and the management of HBK. From the time of the
first warning about dismissal on October 10, 2002, Stanislava Antonivna
was visiting different institutions of various levels. By all possible
means she was trying to protect children and was searching for support
from the regional state administration, people's deputy, head of Dniprovsky
district executive committee, deputies of the city council… Only the head
of Dniprovsky district executive committeeToloknov A.P. reacted to her
cry for the help. He sent a letter to HBK with a request to assist and
transfer the building with the center to the city possession. By January
31, 2002 - the day of the dismissal - it was the only concern for the
bodies of local self-governemnt. Admittedly, at the process of court hearings
Stanislava Antonivna started receiving answers to her requests. For example,
the peoples' deputy Oleh Bespalov wrote in his reponse, "There already
are deputies who work on this problem, such as deputies of the city council
Bilous G.S, Kiyanovsky A.O., Maslov P.E., and it is not ethical for met
to duplicate their actions. The problem can be solved with the help of
local bodies of self-government, and you should ask them for the final
response". The rest of the responses did not contain anything helpful
either.
After the court hearing both parties decided to settle the question with
mediations. The representative of HBK - Sergiy Ulanivskyy - had to learn
the opinion of the company, Pavlo Maslov - had to inform the authorities
of the city about the problem and speed its solution. The Coalition of
Kherson region "Partnership for transparrent society" - had
to cover the story in the press and help in mediations between the city
representatives and HBK management.
The first word is after HBK
Weeks were passing and we could not learn the official position of HBK
management and the city council about the students' center. Business trips,
vacations, business of the leading authorities did not help to solve the
situation. Due to all these reasons we had to ask to court to postpone
two hearings. The first one to tell his view of the problem was the head
of HBK - Sergiy Rybachok.
On Fabruary 19, 2003 the Coalition "Partnership for transparrent
society" sent a letter to Rybachok S.A. with a request to help peaceful
solution of this problem. On March 18 we received an answer from HBK,
"We understand the importance of the problem at the moment and we
are interested in further work of the students' center. Unfortunately,
we do not have financial possibility to support its further work… Our
company can allow the functioning of the center only on the conditions
of paid rent, counting 8,24UAH for a square meter (the rent for other
tenants is from 15 to 20 UAH for a square meter - author). If the city
council has no money to pay the rent, we can talk about the acquittance
of our company's debt in the payment of the rent from the city".
Everyone knows - the company is not having best times now, and its management
expressed readiness to transfer the building to the possession of the
city. And the company does not demand the monetary payment. The expert-auditor
confirmed that it is possible that the city reduces the amount of the
HBK debt in the payment of the rent. The only thing that both parties
need for this - is a good will of both parties.
Everyone can lose
HBK said their word. The position of the city authorities is still a mistery.
The court hearing was appointed for March 25, 2003. It can become a sloving
hearing in the case of empoyment for Stanislava Podobyeda, who has worked
two months free of charge. She works under the threat that the center
will be closed and the equipment will be taken away.
It seems like the management of the HBK made a step forward, it understands
the perspectives to solve this question in the court. First of all, the
court decision in this case would be an evidence. An evidence that a party
(parties) did not want to agree in this case. Thus, they are indifferent
to the destiny of children. And there will be no winner in this case.
We can not know who will have more opponents - HBK or the current team
of the mayor. And if they ignore the trouble that happened with the students'
center - they will give their opponents a trump card and a perfect possibility
for criticism. Especially if we consider that parents of children and
Stanislava Podobyeda are in a very brave mood - they are ready to commit
any actions of civil disobedience to protect the students' center. Because
they are not INDIFFERENT to the education that their children will receive.
They DO NOT WANT their children to become drug-addicts, criminals or prostitutes.
To prevent such a threat we don't need to do any special effort - only
take a phone a call: a few days are left before March 25 - there is still
some time for the dialogue.
Oleksandr Burmagin
To be continued.
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