OUR NEXT CHARITY
The
next international charity we will be supporting is The Erayim Aid Trust UK,
which provides funding for Erayim, a small NGO working in Kyrgyzstan. For those
that don’t know, Kyrgyzstan is a small country (5 million inhabitants) in
Central Asia. It was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when it gained
independence. The first few years after independence from the Soviet Union were
extremely difficult, because the country no longer received any state support
for its education, health service or infrastructure. In almost
every family the healthy male members of the family spend the best part of the
year working in Russia as migrants: builders, cleaners, craftsmen, ensuring
their economic survival, as
living standards have declined dramatically and
unemployment is very high.
Erayim
was created by graduate Kyrgyz women in the early nineties in response to what
followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In particular they have
facilitated the creation of several hundreds of self-help groups in deprived
communities throughout the country. There are currently 450 such groups, which
support small enterprises by pooling small sums of money which are then lent
out, for instance, to buy a cow, a sewing machine or some building materials.
They are also leaders in their communities, lobbying their local authority on
various issues.
Other projects include counselling and centres for children affected by ethnic violence in the south of the country. They also conduct education about bride kidnapping, which still accounts for up to 30% of marriages in Kyrgyzstan. Each summer free English classes are held for children in different areas of the country, and for the last 4 years this has been extended to short courses for teachers of English, both to practise the language (for which they have little opportunity) and to learn new teaching ideas and techniques. English volunteers are recruited each year to do this (both Anne and Frances Garsed have taken part in this). Economic development is hindered by the fact that most people speak only Russian or Kyrghiz, making it difficult to develop in areas such as international commerce and tourism, so learning English is really important
The Outreach Group
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