Solidarity greetings from SAK office: Basic foodstuffs to Sortavala

SAK s personnel organised a collection for Sortavala town's Social Help Centre before last Christmas. The little Russian town of Sortavala is only a stone s throw away from the Finnish border. It has become known for economical difficulties, poverty and crime. Last year SAK's workers collected material help, clothes and some money, but this time it was basic groceries. About 4,000 FIM was spent in buying tined fish, cooking oil, pasta, milk powder, flour, sugar, tea and hulled grain. In pasta SAK s help means about 2,000 kilos.

Sortavala's Social Help Centre gives out clothes and food for the people most in need. In practice the help goes to the single parent families, although there many others that would need help as well. Clothes are handed out to families one time in a year and groceries more often. The town offers facilities and a worker for the Centre. Material help comes from international organisations, the Red Cross and other non-governmental organisations. The EU sends help to Sortavala as well.

About hundred local trade unions of SAK send humanitarian help to the Russian border district. The local unions are mainly partners working near the border, but some unions have organised massive campaigns by collecting containers full of goods.

Besides the humanitarian help of single trade union members and citizens, the member unions of SAK and SAK works in a close association with the trade unions in Karelian republic, St Petersburg and Leningrad.