RAIPON was approached for assistance by residents of the Omolon village of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug with a request to assist in solving the problem of the village school, which is on the verge of being closed down. The construction of a new school was suspended, as the construction company of Canada accomplishing construction went bankrupt and the old school building was in a dilapidated condition. It was promised that the construction of a new school will be accomplished in 2007, then in 2008 the latest promise was to commission the school by September 1, 2009. Since November  2008 classes have been arranged in two shifts, the second floor being maximally vacated on the recommendation of the regional administration.

On February this year a commission from the District visited the site, including the L.A. Nikolaev, head of the administration of the Bilibino District; N.A. Levashko, head of the Agency for Social Policy, Yu.P. Shapovalov, state fire safety inspector and others. The members of the Commission concluded that the school was to be closed down for failure to meet the fire safety regulations. It was decided that 117 students, 62 preschool children and 27 teachers should be temporarily taken to Bilibino, Pevek or Ugolnye Kopi until the construction is completed. . The contractor to continue construction has not yet been identified, and the contract can last some indefinite time. According to the conclusion of the commission that visited the school building, the bulk of the construction work has been completed: the kindergarten building and the gymnasium have been completed, and the construction of the school building has been initiated.

The residents of the village suggest that the children and the teachers should not be taken away, and in summer the premises of the Club should be equipped as classrooms, «as the club has spacious rooms, a large lobby, and the canteen equipped for catering the school builders », the letter says. The club building is new. And in the course of summer it can be arranged that it should meet the fire safety requirements, the residents of the Omolon village believe.

The appeal states that in case the reindeer -herder parents find out that their children are intended to take away some place without the consent of the parents, they would not like to send them to school in the autumn. . The parents living in the village would have to leave Omolon not to part with their children. As a result, the village may be deprived of a number of specialists it needs, and those specialists, whom the village needs so badly would never return.

According to Omolon residents, the shutting down of the school would entail a number of detrimental consequences: the Omolon people have had hard times – the village was closed down several times; the food was not delivered. First, the high school was turned into a middle school (9 grades), subsequently it was planned to make the school primary. It was very difficult to prevent all those developments and nowadays the very existence of the village is endangered.  «We request that all governmental and nongovernmental institutions be addressed to resolve our problem, and those responsible for the present situation be identified », - says the appeal.