What’s “The Big Idea”?

A couple of weeks ago, Lenara and I went on a daylong excursion to a town called Saki to attend an event called “Sunday Borsch”, arranged by a NGO (non-governmental organization) who call themselves The Garage Gang and promoting something called “The Big Idea”. The way it came up, was that Lenara was invited by one to the Garage Gang to visit any of these events and this was the closest one to us. She told me she was going and asked me if I would like to join her the next day. With no other plans, I agreed. Most times I am thoroughly frustrated by any travel in this country. I have expressed my displeasure with the train system and the bus system, while easier for me to navigate, is not much more enjoyable. One issue is the schedules and routes the buses take. In order to get to Saki, which is probably 1½ hours from us by car, we had to take the bus from Radol’noye at 9:00am to make our appointment in Saki…at 4:00pm! We had to take the bus to a city called Evpatoria which is about 2 hours on bus, even though it is only 70km away. Then, we had to catch the bus from Evpatoria that would get us to Saki, and the only one that would get us there in before 4:00 left Evpatoria around noon, getting us into Saki around 12:30. Then we met some of Lenara’s friends who had come from Simferopol and arrived around 1:00pm. This gave Lenara and I a chance to explore the neighborhood around the bus station which did have a beautiful church and a small bazaar. We walked a little and then made our way back to the station to meet Anife and Andreii. Then we had to get on a third bus that would take us from Saki center to one of the outlying villages called Krimskaya.

L-R Anife, Lenara, and Andreii pose with a poster advertising the Big Idea program in town.

That bus took about 25 minutes and there was only one stop in the town. At the general store. We showed up and walked over to the House of Culture. There are a lot of children, loud music, and a few adults. We arrive and make our introductions- and one guy is an American, but not a Peace Corp volunteer. We have almost 3 hours before the program that we came for starts and we need to get some food. There are even less options here than in our own little town of Razdol’noye. We wind up back at the general store and buy some chips and sausages and sodas. The selection was meager, I assure you.

Around 4:00, we head back to the House of Culture and everyone who was outside earlier has now moved inside.

Inside I make my way over to the American, Brian, and find out what we are doing here. He is a freelance photographer from NYC who met Sasha, a photographer from the Garage Gang, while both were shooting pictures at Occupy Wall Street. Sasha invited Brian to Ukraine to do this Big Idea tour for a few weeks and here they are. Earlier, Brian was teaching the children outside how to take pictures and work a camera while other members of the “gang” were teaching them arts and crafts and about recycling. 

One of the sculptures made by kids using only recycled plastic bottles and bags.

Brian explains that The Garage Gang travels from town to town where they invite community members to “Sunday Borsch”. Although borsch is served at most stops, the community members here decided that they wanted cookies, candy, and tea instead. All of the community members who come are asked to pay some admission fee, usually between 5 and 20UAH (US$0.60-$2.50) in exchange for the right to vote. Then, the borsch is served and speakers get up and give their presentations. Each presenter is a community member and talks about an idea that they think will benefit the community. This day they were four presentations. Obviously all in Russian, so I don’t know the details of all of the project ideas. One man said he would like to oversee a basketball court being built into the current playground. He outlined the benefits and talked about how he would go about getting one installed. Next up was a woman who wanted to develop a cross between a kindergarten and a daycare for little children and their parents. 

One of the presentations of an idea that could use the money from today's event

The third wanted to use the funds to turn an old swimming pool in the center of town into a flowerbed. (we cannot remember the fourth idea). After all of the presentations have been given, there is then a vote by all of the paid attendees. The votes are counted and minutes later a winning idea is announced. The winner then receives all of the money collected at the door to do, or put towards their project. And like that, the program is over. The crowd disperses. The day’s winner, today a center for little kids and their parents, then has pictures taken with a bouquet of flowers and the winning cash (today about 350UAH or US$44.00).

I asked Brian if he had seen anything strange on this tour and he did say that the cash in another town went to a woman whose idea was to start a nail salon. I told him that I didn’t think it sounded realistic to be able to start a business of that scale with the money she collected. But, then I realized that this program was so much more about possibilities than the actual cash. The votes for ideas were actually votes of confidence in another community member’s idea and whether it failed or succeeded, it was one person giving an idea and the rest of the community getting behind it. Also, fundraising is a virtually unknown concept in this country. Up until recently, it was very easy for organizations to just apply for grants and receive money to apply to whatever they wanted to do (in many cases filling personal pockets) with little or zero accountability or transparency. Only in the past few years have more giving organizations begun requiring an accounting of how funds are spent and following up on what the money was used for. This program showed in one afternoon how someone with an idea can receive a microgrant from their community members without having to rely on international donors for the money. It shows, at least in some way, that they can do it themselves and if the whole community gets behind an idea, the needs can be met using only local resources.
On the bus home (which took us 5 hours, by the way), I asked Lenara what she thought of what we had witnessed that day. Her focus was more on the people in the Garage Gang than on the bigger picture that I had seen. I brought up the concept of community sustainable fundraising and I asked if she thought we could do something like this in Razdol’noye. Without giving specific reasons, she did not think it would work here. It was at that moment that I decided I probably need to develop a presentation on fundraising to show the people in my town the possibility of having your town contribute to your projects.