Impact story of the Human Rights movement “Bir Duino Kyrgyzstan”
Июн 28.2020
During the implementation of the “View from the Frontline” project of GNDR in Kyrgyzstan in 2019 we closely cooperated with local communities in the regions in order to increase their roles in decision making processes and strengthen collaboration between local people with national authorities. Strategic purpose of our work was the identification of the possible risks and threats for local communities and delivery of their voices to the national authorities of Kyrgyzstan.
From our involvement we gained incredible experience how to build constructive dialogue between local communities, CSOs and national departments in the conditions characterized by the lack of trust, high level of corruption, unemployment, labor migration, absence of initiatives aimed on solution of these serious problems.
In such difficult situation we faced with group of women, who are civic activists of Maily-Suu village in Jalal-Abad region. For many years they had been trying to explain to the national authorities the real situation in their community, especially about the risks and threats of the uranium tailings for local citizens who live in close dangerous areas, drink water from underground sources that directly connected with uranium and are influenced by the high level of radiation. These women can see the real sufferings of their families, mutations of newborn children, chronic illnesses of old and young people. They were so desperate and tired of ineffectiveness of their actions to meet and discuss possible solutions of the mentioned problems.
In this case when we met them and suggested to deliver their needs to the national authorities in order to build constructive dialogue, at the beginning they even didn’t believe in such opportunity. It took some time to convince them that further work will be aimed to change the situation for the better. Trust of local women of Maily-Suu village really helped us in our work to identify impact of risks to the local communities. We combined all data and used them in analysis in VFL database system. After we collected all their ideas, information about risks and threats, we conducted first work meeting with local authorities and presented them the real proof of their words. Only after that representatives of the national departments received all necessary data and agreed to conduct a meeting with local women in the region. As a result of our work these women get opportunity to deliver their problems to decision making people who even agreed to change current socio-economic policy because they are afraid of possible responsibility if risks will become a real unpredictable disaster.
Additional positive impact of our cooperation was that national authorities also agreed to provide further reports on how and what type of work will be implemented on the local level in this village.
We believe that mentioned work with that group of women and local authorities in Maily-Suu district is not over for today. We learned a great lesson that providing opportunity for even one small local community can create positive impact and change the situation for the better. In this case the most important point that even one voice of the local people should be listened and delivered to the national authorities, because only local people really know what serious problems and possible solutions they have and what work should be done in order to prevent risks from becoming disasters on the national level.
Photos of our meetings with local people and the national authorities in Maily-Suu village are attached.
