Tobacco Control Resource Center for the Russian speaking countries was closed and re-opened

(short story of the donation campaign in three letters)

Dear GLOBALinkers,
We have to announce that the Tobacco Control Resource Center for the Russian speaking countries after 7 years of activities is closed.
We are grateful to the WHO, which funded our activities in 2000-2001, and to the Open Society Institute, which funded our activities in 2002-2006. Report of the Center activities can be found at http://adic-ukraine.narod.ru/adic/projects/tcrc_report.htm 
Our web-site http://contacttobinfo.narod.ru, which currently has about 5000 pages of tobacco control information in Russian and about 9000 visitors a month, will no more be updated.
Our newsletter subscribers (more than 2500 persons from 20 countries) will no longer receive our newsletters (we had 263 newsletters issues so far).
We also can no longer support any activities of GLOBALink Russian.
While we had no funding since January 2007, we continued the Center activities for free, trying to find any direct or indirect source of funding. The annual center budget was just 12,000 USD, but this amount occurred too big for funders. Our last hope has died today.
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who supported our activities and we do hope that tobacco control in our part of the world is so developed that the Tobacco Control Resource Center is no more needed.
Konstantin Krasovsky
Tatiana Andreeva
April 23, 2007

Konstantin's sad email should make us all think about the North-South divide in tobacco control. His Centre is about to close for want of just $12,000!!! This is not some token post office box, masquerading as tobacco control, but one of Eastern Europe's most energetic and intelligent tobacco control spark plugs with a long-standing track record.
Globalink has over 5000 members. If just 125 of us donated only $100, we would keep his centre open for another year allowing it to service the entire Russian speaking footprint of Russia, the former USSR and its Eastern bloc states: hundreds of millions of people. It would give his group breathing space to have another attempt at getting support.
Those of us in the affluent West think little of spending $100 on a restaurant meal, a small piece of office equipment or a monthly phone bill. I am regularly appalled at the profligate waste that goes on in tobacco control, while groups like Konstantin's can run a service for a year for a sum that is almost institutional petty cash.
I'll start it off with $200. Those wishing to donate, please contact Konstantin directly at kks@adic.org.ua . He will advise you how to transfer the money as painlessly as possible and post weekly advice to Globalink on progress toward his target.
Simon Chapman
April 26, 2007

Dear Friends,
I am really proud to be a member of the international tobacco control community.
I am much grateful to Simon Chapman for his appeal to save the Tobacco Control Resource Center for Russian speaking countries with private donations from tobacco control advocates.
Within 24 hours after the appeal I received 28 letters proposing donations. There were letters from Australia, New Zealand, USA (Iowa, California, New Hampshire, Michigan, Illinois, Maryland), Canada (British Columbia, Ontario, Quйbec, Saskatchewan), Ireland, South Africa, UK, France, Sweden. We also received letters of support and donations from Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine and Russia from people who are subscribers of the Center newsletters.
It also occurs that some letters did not reach me due to technical problems. If so please email to an alternative address at kkrasovsky@yahoo.com
I also received letters from two organizations, which proposed to discuss opportunities to support the Center activities financially.
Many people asked me if we applied for Bloomberg funding in the first round of grant applications. Yes, we submitted two applications, the first one about the Resource Center activities and the second one about the development of tobacco control in Ukraine. Unfortunately, both applications were rejected.
We are going to re-apply in June for the next round of Bloomberg grants and we much appreciate your letters to support our application.
I do hope that some long-term institutional funding for the Tobacco Control Resource Center for Russian speaking countries will be eventually found. But it is very important to continue the Center activities for some time before we get such funding. The more private donations we receive the more sustained and diverse will be the Center work.
We appreciate every word of sympathy and every cent of your donations. Expecting more letters of support we decided not to wait until the amount of donations reaches our annual budget and we re-open the Center today. Tomorrow our subscribers will receive one of our regular newsletters.
Yours very truly,
Konstantin Krasovsky
April 27, 2007