OSCE Office in Baku brings community policing to schools

In Mingachevir city in north-western Azerbaijan, the OSCE Office in Baku has been working successfully for the past three years to implement a community policing project that aims to develop a new perception of police among the public, not as authoritarian enforcers of the law but as providers of a service to the community.

Some of the activities supported by the Office have specifically targeted children: at Police Open Days, for example, kids have had the chance to meet police officers, and volunteers trained under the project have been helping schoolchildren to cross busy streets safely.

In October 2009, the OSCE Office in Baku decided to expand this important aspect of its police assistance programme by helping police officers to organize activities with children in the town's schools.

The pilot project will target the 20 elementary schools in Mingechevir, with approximately 12,803 pupils aged seven to 16, and the town's two high schools, with approximately 775 pupils.

Building mutual trust

The main goal of the project is to build mutual trust between the police and schoolchildren; educate them about how to prevent crime and preserve public peace and order; increase their safety and security; and create an opportunity for them to get to know the city police officers.

"For various reasons, parents frighten children by telling them that if they are not good the police will come and arrest them," Chief of Mingachevir District Police Alesker Badalov complains. "In this way the children develop a negative attitude towards the police. I hope that school policing will help us to change this perception."

Kemal Karademir, the police expert at the OSCE Office in Baku responsible for implementing the project, is convinced that allowing children to develop a constructive relationship with the police will bring future benefits. "The attitudes and the behavior of the community towards the police and the role of the police in securing public peace, order and safety in everyday life are very important," he declares.

"We think that this project will help children to form independent and positive opinions about the police from their own personal experiences," he says.

Preparing the ground

In the first stage of the project, which is currently underway, Karademir briefed officers of the Mingachevir city police about how to communicate with school principals effectively and the types of community policing activities they can organize for the schoolchildren.

In each of the police departments, a focal point has been chosen, who will be responsible for the implementation of the activities.

The OSCE police expert also visited schools in Mingachevir and met with directors, teachers and pupils to introduce the new project.

He has already organized visits of police officers to the schools, in which they spoke with directors about the challenges they face and exchanged views on ways to build mutual trust. He is planning to arrange visits of school kids to the police department later this year.

The effectiveness of this first stage will be evaluated in the coming months with a view to expanding the school policing activity to other cities in Azerbaijan where community policing programmes are already in place.

From workshops on safety to sports tournaments

The police officers are due to begin going into the schools to implement their activities with the children in March.

Among the activities they will offer are workshops on road safety awareness, drawing and essay competitions and football or basketball tournaments. In addition, the officers will hold several seminars on subjects such as narcotics and traffic awareness.

The directors of the schools have welcomed the school policing initiative and expressed their support to the OSCE Office in Baku and the local police.

"Building positive relations between schools and police would help us to provide more stability and order in our city. I hope these activities will create a ground for better co-operation between our society and law enforcement bodies," says Mr. Azer Gaziyev, Director of School N 15.