Volunteer coordinator Marfa Rabkova: "Everyone who has a soul was swept up in a storm of emotions. I was just channeling this energy."

It’s not possible to overestimate the efforts of volunteers and their help in the light of the latest events in the country. Almost every day new groups of volunteers that work in different domains pop up: the search for the missing after the dispersal of peaceful demonstrations, assistance to those who are leaving the temporary detention facility, vehicle facilitation, legal consultations, medical assistance  and much more.

The volunteer service of "Viasna" as a separate unit in the organization was founded in 2012. Initially, the main responsibility of the Service was to assist in the work of the organization and to involve young people in actions based on human rights principles. Over time, the Volunteer Service has developed full responsibilities in public control, participation in educational and awareness-raising projects, support for human rights campaigns, and legal aid to the public.

With the new challenges that our society has been facing, the activities of the Volunteer Service of the "Viasna" have been transformed.

The coordinator of the Service, Marfa Rabkova, tells what brought her to the organization, what efforts were taken during the election campaign and what opportunities for the Volunteer Service she considers for the future.

Marfa Rabkova volunteering at the Rock for Life concert held within the Week Against the Death Penalty, 2019

Marfa Rabkova has recalled that her personal volunteer experience began in 2013, when she started helping stray animals in one of the shelters. Marfa has seen that this was one of the areas where the state turned a blind eye and withdrew from solving those problems. In situations like this, people always organize themselves and take responsibility to help others. And since 2016, Marfa Rabkova, the human rights activist started helping political prisoners in Belarus.

"I have a personal story that is tied to this. I met my husband when repressions against activists of the Critical Mass and football fans started and we worked together to provide support to the victims of the actions of the law enforcement", she says.

In the fall of 2019, the Viasna Human Rights Center was looking for a new volunteer service coordinator and Marfa Rabkova joined the team of human rights defenders.

"I saw Viasna as the most structured and well-coordinated human rights organization in Belarus, with its own history that covers a variety of activities and aspects of human rights work. I believe by joining the "Viasna", I’ll be able to help people at a bigger scale. I must say, I was not mistaken, because I have been looking for the opportunity to channel my energy in such a positive direction for a long time", the coordinator of the Service shares.

In 2020, the Volunteer Service of Viasna organized about 10 observations of peaceful protest demonstrations, monitored hundreds of trials, organized an English Language Learning Club and several training webinars on various topics.

"There are young people all over the country who either consciously or not gravitate towards the values of human rights. And in "peacetime" my task, as a coordinator, is to find them, identify opportunities, reveal their potential and direct all this to create some initiatives or projects for the benefit of human rights. It's not always easy, but who said it would be?", says Marfa Rabkova.

Along with the start of the election campaign, new tasks have come out for the volunteers: assistance to the repressed potential presidential candidates and activists of their initiative groups, recruitment and training of short-term election observers.

Marfa Rabkova in the blue vest of the observer on the left. Photo Belsat

"A few months before the presidential elections, the Volunteer Service joined the work on the campaign "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections". We worked with applications from all over Belarus from people who wanted to become election observers. By the way, there were about 1500 of them in the end. Without going deeper and without revealing the internal processes in detail, we can say that the result of the campaign was the accreditation of 800 observers, with whom, of course, it was necessary to communicate personally on surveillance issues.

Unfortunately, due to the powerful opposition of the current government at the expense of administrative resources only 100 observers of the campaign managed to fulfill their duties at the polling stations to varying degrees. But our actions were still not lost. Even such a number of people managed to record multiple violations of the legislation of Belarus."

After the end of the main election day, which was followed by peaceful demonstrations of protest against the announced preliminary election results and unacceptable violence committed by the security forces against demonstrators, the Volunteer Service of "Viasna" switched its efforts to helping the victims.

"Our volunteer observers of #ControlBy on the night of the ninth of August witnessed the boundless brutality of the riot police and, among other things, an incident with a paddy wagon hitting a person.

Since then, the Volunteer Service has switched to work on finding and assisting detainees at the protest actions, as well as supporting their families."

During these 10 days, several dozen people have written to the Volunteer Service of "Viasna" with a proposal to be included in the solidarity process and several hundred have asked for help. Marfa Rabkova emphasizes:

"Now the search for volunteers and the issues of their employment have become much easier. Everyone who has a soul was swept up in a storm of emotions. I'm just channeling that energy."

Volunteers choose products for political prisoners. Marfa Rabkova on the right. Photo: Spring96.org

The human rights activist notes that working with volunteers, as in any work with people, the most difficult thing is to find the common ground, define strength to find a common language in the future:

"We need to understand the needs and capabilities of a person so that our cooperation will be mutually beneficial to both of us and, as a result, to the whole society."

The coordinator says that the interest in Volunteer Service has increased dramatically in spring and in the summer she sees an unprecedented rise in volunteering:

"People want to put their legal, medical and other knowledge into practice in collaboration with the Volunteer Service "Viasna". I think this trend will continue.

And in my work, I am pleased to see the eyes with the light of an idea. It's energizing and when I feel some kind of devastation or burnout, people's emotions fill me up and make me stronger."

Marfa Rabkova (in the center) with volunteers observes a peaceful assembly