Internet and non-profit organizations in Eastern European topic of conference (08/29/99)

Internet and non-profit organizations in Eastern European topic of conference

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The Sabre Foundation, hosted representatives from its partner organizations in Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine in June at a training workshop titled "The Internet's Contribution to the Sustainability and Growth of Non-governmental Organizations (NGO)s."

All of the participants in the two-week program work in the emerging non-profit sector in Eastern Europe and will use the skills they acquired at Sabre to train others in their home countries.

Since 1986 the Sabre Foundation has worked through its partner organizations to distribute millions of dollars' worth of donated new books and educational materials to individuals and institutions around the world. The Information Technology Workshops, launched in 1998, represent Sabre's newest initiative for improving access to information in transitional countries.

The participants in the workshop came from diverse professional backgrounds and represented a wide range of information technology skill levels; one had never used the Internet before, while two others had already been exposed to some principles of website design.

The training sessions covered everything from basic e-mail and search engine skills to HTML and JavaScript. The goal of the training was to help the participants develop a set of skills they could build on in their home environments. "In their countries, there are varying degrees of Internet connectivity," said Don Share, Sabre's trainer. "Whatever access they have, we can give them a vision of how the Internet can be fully integrated into their work."

Site visits to local non-profit organizations gave workshop participants an opportunity to learn about real-world applications for the skills they acquired at Sabre. At MIT, for example, they attended a lecture on testing the validity and usability of library websites; at the International Institute of Boston, which provides language training and career services for refugees and new immigrants, they learned about software for teaching English; and at Harvard University's Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations, the participants compared notes with Research Fellow Frances Kunreuther on NGOs in the United States and Eastern Europe. The participants also had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Joan Challinor, commissioner of the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science.

The seven visitors took time out from their information technology training to share some of their organizations' successes and challenges at a roundtable on Sabre's book donation program. The organizations they represent have received thousands of donated books for distribution in their home countries. The Sabre staff and its foreign partners welcomed two special guests to the roundtable: Ronald Ungaro, special projects officer for publishing, education and information technology at the United States Information Agency, who has worked closely with Sabre to facilitate book donations abroad; and Tim Downey, manager of the Peace Corps' Major Gifts Program, who helped establish Sabre's new cooperative agreement with the Peace Corps.

Mr. Ungaro opened the discussion by giving credit to Sabre's foreign partners for finding appropriate locations for the donated books and for making the collections accessible to the public. "It's like a fine dinner in a restaurant," he remarked. "People see the waiter bringing them an elegant dinner from the kitchen, but they've no idea how much work went into preparing it." He also stressed that USIA attaches great importance to building public-private partnerships in support of programs of high national interest.

The East European participants emphasized their countries' continuing need for quality books in many fields, including medicine, law and English language education. The most difficult challenge, they all agreed, was raising funds in their own countries to cover the cost of shipping and other incidentals. The prospects for fund-raising in the region have been particularly bleak, they felt, since the collapse of the Russian economy in August 1998.

Several participants attributed their difficulties to the fact that East European societies in general lack experience with charitable organizations. Olha Isaievich, director of Sabre's partner organization in Ukraine, noted that her organization had been the first NGO in the city of Lviv. Since its founding in 1990, Sabre-Svitlo has been the test case for the emerging non-profit sector in her country.

In a similar story, Svetlana Vinnik reported that shortly after a shipment from Sabre had arrived in her city of Vitebsk, Belarus, thieves broke into the apartment where the books were being stored. When police arrived to investigate the incident, they interrogated Mrs. Vinnik for over an hour. "They couldn't believe that such high quality books would be donated," she said, "and they couldn't believe that I was working on a volunteer basis."

A highlight of the two-week program for Sabre's partners was a half-day visit to the warehouse in Clinton, Mass., where Sabre stores its books. The East European visitors saw how books received from publishers were catalogued and stored, and then eventually packed onto pallets for shipping to recipients around the world.

Mrs. Vinnik had particular words of praise for Rafael Morales, Sabre's warehouse manager. "When we open the pallets," she told an obviously pleased and embarrassed Mr. Morales, "we can see that the books were packed lovingly and with great care - thank you."

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