Swiss aid worker spreads hope in Siberian village

Christine Bigler in a children's home in Schutschje swissinfo.ch

A Swiss aid worker is setting up projects to provide food, jobs and hope in an impoverished Siberian village.

Christine Bigler, the director of social and medical care for the Swiss branch of the charity Green Cross, visited Siberia for the first time earlier this year, as part of a project to help towns and villages close to chemical weapons plants.

The village of Schutschje is economically impoverished and faces another environmental threat in the form of a nearby nuclear stockpile.

“Everyone is scared, and you can really feel the fear when you speak to the people there,” says Bigler. “They have the feeling that there is no future and they don’t know how to carry on.”

Bigler is working closely with mothers in the village, many of whom lost their husbands in a nuclear accident some years ago.

“The mothers face a terrible situation, because they don’t have any money and they’re powerless to do anything if their child falls ill,” she says. “They don’t even have the seven roubles they need to go to the doctor’s.”

Bigler plans to return early in 2002, when the project formally gets under way.

Health worries

Environmental pollution in the area means the mothers live in constant fear of their children’s ill health, says Bigler.

“As soon as their children have flu, mothers are terrified that it’s cancer,” Bigler explains. “People don’t even know where the nearest doctor is they can go to. When I talk to them about their most urgent needs, they don’t ask you for money, they ask you for information.”

Bigler is setting up a range of projects in the village, including reopening a local kindergarten that will provide children with hot meals. Green Cross is also funding the purchase of cows so people can have milk.

One of Bigler’s main goals is to attract investors to the area to create employment. “The biggest problem for the people of Schutschje is the lack of jobs.

Yet despite the evident hardships of the people she met, Bigler was struck by their strength and willpower. “The women especially are incredible – they are still strong and they always strive to do better.”

She cites the many music and drama schools set up by the women of Schutschje for the children: “They know how important it is for the children to grow up seeing another side to life.”

Community spirit

Bigler says she was also moved by the strong sense of kinship and community in the village. “People really help and care for one another – it’s a completely different mentality to our western individualism and doing things just for your own benefit.”

On a personal level, Bigler says she feels compelled to do something to alleviate the plight of the villagers. “They have the right for us to do something for them,” she says. ” I always ask myself: why was I born in Switzerland – where I can buy and do whatever I want – when they have nothing?”

By Vanessa Mock