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Date: 03 December 2003

A loan from Christian Aid partner Mehrengez has enabled Mavluda Abduloeva to support her family by growing crops for sale. Photo: Christian Aid/Gary Calton

In August 2003, Christian Aid partner organisations from Kosovo travelled to Tajikistan for the first part of a partner exchange. The purpose of the visit was to learn from each other's experiences, as both countries have suffered from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the terrible conflicts that followed.

Three representatives from Kosovo took part: the Centre for the Protection of Women (CPWC), the Kosovo Women's Initiative (KWI), and the Kosovo Development Centre (KDC). CPWC's work includes HIV/AIDS education for young people and campaigning against domestic violence; KWI's focus is education for women and girls, and small business training; and the KDC's work includes increasing the capacity of farmers and running an income generation scheme for widows.

The focus of the visit was the work that NGOs Mehrengez and Ghamkhori are doing in southern Tajikistan, an area severely affected by civil war.

The partners visited a number of beneficiaries of the Mehrengez micro-credit schemes in the town of Kurgan-Teppe. One is a widow who runs a clothes stall in the market. She lost her husband in the civil war, and has a son and daughter to support. She approached Mehrengez in 2000 when she heard of their scheme. The loan she received enables her to travel to the capital Dushanbe to purchase goods at a much lower price than she would find locally. She is now able to afford to send her children to school.

Ghamkhori manages a women's centre in Kurgan-Teppe to address the high levels of domestic violence experienced by many women, and also runs health initiatives in a number of religious villages in Khaltan province. The exchange partners visited one of the drugs awareness courses run by Ghamkhori. Given the high number of men who travel to Russia in search of work each year, many are exposed to drug abuse and are often tempted by money offered to traffic drugs into neighbouring countries. Ghamkhori offers the course to teenage boys and other groups.

Ghamkhori hoped that the relationships formed with the partners from Kosovo would help their work on a number of issues, including how to engage religious communities on the issue of education for girls.

Dafina Ukella, project coordinator for CPWC commented: 'In addition to the cultural similarities between the two countries, many of the activities in Tajikistan are similar to those which were undertaken in Kosovo immediately after the conflict.'

Mehrengez said that the exchange had taught them that they can learn from other organisations who had overcome some of the issues facing NGOs in Tajikistan. The partners from Kosovo were able to offer advice on how to become more involved in lobbying the government on key issues affecting the region. CPWC's experience shows how this is possible. They successfully lobbied local municipalities to open numerous women's centres. Dafina expressed the hope that both partners would in the future successfully lobby for more independence for women in Tajikistan.

The Tajikistan partners will visit Kosovo in April 2004.