Youth Independent Republics of Fergana Valley Central Asian Alliance for Water Kyrgyzstan Gulnara Zhenishbekova Youth Program Coordinator
Central Asian Alliance for Water Central Asian Alliance for Water (CAAW) is a Public Association working in Fergana Valley since 1998 on providing with the pure drinking Water. The main components of CAAW are the followings: Water Committees Sanitation and Hygiene Eco san Conception Activation of Youth and Women
What are the Youth Independent Republics? Youth Independent Republics (YIRs) are non registered Initiative groups working in the villages of Fergana Valley on activation of rural Youth in decision making processes. The YIRs are working in 17 villages of Kyrgyzstan and 10 villages of Tajik Republic. Nowadays YIRs are involved more than 8000 youth in their work. They work in cooperation with the Local Authority, Water Committees, Local Youth Committees, village schools, kindergartens, boarding schools and other Non Governmental and International Organizations.
The structure of the YIRs President (local Authority) The Ministers 1. Minister of Sanitation ang Hygiene 2. Minister of Education 3. Minister of Water and Ecology 4. Minister of Muss Media 5. Minister of Culture 6. Minister of Sport 7. Minister of Finance The Parliament Supreme Court
The structure of YIR repeats the structure of Kyrgyz Republic in the reduced variant and with simplifications in some places. This structure gives a chance to understand the system of the executive, legislative and judicial power more deeply. In addition it gives the chance to children to participate in elections acting both, active and passive voters. YIR is not created at schools, but created in the village that gives the chance to all youth to take part in this process, without dependence from the academic progress if it is good or bad, and it doesn t matter if they go to school or not.
The structure is very useful and important, because of the clubs in it. Every Minister has his own team. The minister of culture usually works with the puppetry club and the Minister of Education usually works on development of the debate club. The Minister of Finance works on fundraising and working out of the annual budget and works on the budget of the grants that they receive from CAAW.
Ministers and their work The Minister of Sanitation and Hygiene works with their team to explain how should we use water in order not to get sick and work in cooperation with the local hospitals in order to spread the informational materials among the youth and other inhabitants. The Ministers of Water and Ecology are responsible for the water and environment issues, organize different events on using water with the Water Committees that are working in every village.
Also one of the interesting directions in which the Education Ministers work, is the development of the debate clubs. CAAW organizes annual debate trainings and teach children to debate with each other.
The Ministers of Muss Media are involved in preparation of the informational materials about the YIRs and prepare monthly informational papers about their YIR. The Ministers of Sport usually organize different activities among the YIRs: football volleyball basketball table tennis chess other games that are interesting to the members of the YIRs
PUPPET THEATRE of Youth Independent Republics
Central Asian Alliance is working on development of the Youth Independent Republics from the 2003 and organizing different activities for the potential development of the YIR members. One time in two years all the YIRs organize elections to the Deputy Positions.
CAAW organizes annual festivals with the participation of the most active members of the Youth Independent Republics. In 2009 the festival held under the title: The youth for the active civil participation. During the festival all the participants had chance to take part in the trainings and seminars, to be a member of their own political parties and elect the president and the deputies of the festival that later worked out the strategic plan of the whole YIRs.
One of the most interesting and useful events that CAAW organized for the YIR members with the Peace Corps Volunteers was the event My future profession. During this 3 day event all the participants took part in the trainings Setting up realistic goals and Dressing and business lunch. Then they were divided into 6 groups and visited 6 places and had a talk with the professionals about their job and what kind of abilities they needed.
Grants for the YIRs Each year CAAW supports YIRs giving them grants for their own activities in their villages. The sum of the grants will depend on the project that the members work out. Usually it is about 170 350 US Dollars. The Prime Minister and the Ministers of Finance are responsible for the project implementation in their villages. The projects can be different according to the needs of the YIRs.
Present time 27 YIRs in Fergana valley has created their own network Initiative Youth Union. This network was created with the aim to unite youth to take an active part in decision making processes in local and national levels. During the Fergana Valley Youth Summit organized by CAAW the participants determined the main priorities of the network. The priorities of the network attract all the challenges at the region and are strategically important:
luck of drinking water and information about drinking water; luck of basic sanitation and bad hygiene behavior; luck of education on human rights and democracy; luck information on the reasons and consequences of climate change; unequal participation of girls and boys at activities and decision making process; social participation of disabled people; luck of attention to the physical activities ; luck of attention to the cultural development of youth ; luck of attention to the youth in the outlying districts.
The network has about 8000 youth members in Fergana Valley ready to work at the challenges and open for the partnership. Network needs capacity on the environment protection and climate change adaptation. We are ready for new members and partners.
Thank you for your attention! Initiative Youth Union Kyrgyzstan, Osh city, #4 Suyunbaev street +996 3222 20096 leadergulnara@yahoo.com