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Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan

Husband and wife team up in Kyrgyzstan self help group

"We have 18 people in our self help group - nine men and nine women," says Baethaeva, who is the leader of an association of self-help groups that receive backing from Development and Cooperation in Central Asia, an NGO grouping supported by European churches. They're assessing recent progress in their town of 20 000 residents, about 30 kilometres from Jalalblad in southwestern Kyrgyzstan.

She hands out bottles of Jalalabad's famed water from its mineral springs on a summer day when the temperature rises above 40 degrees Celsius. The water is so rich and tasty it is sold throughout Kyrgyzstan, and also exported.

"The businesses that belong to the self-help groups around here use microcredits from DCCA to buy stock from Kazakhstan," she says as she and her husband confer about a new issue for the group, to which she has been elected leader for a one-year rotation policy. The group is also engaged in small scale farming of wheat and sunflower in an area famed for its farming output.

"We also negotiate for small scale credit for people from outside the self-help group, but they have to pay higher interest than members," says Baehaeava, explaining that peer pressure is so great there is very little defaulting on loans.

Self-help groups strengthen civil society

The area around Jalalabad is steeped in history as one of the many branches of the famed Silk Road, the channel for globalisation before intercontinental shipping began. The world's oldest and largest natural walnut forests are in an area called Arslanbob in Jalalabad province, a region almost the size of Switzerland.

Both men and women join the self help groups in Kyrgystan. Photo: DCA

"We have had some success with self- help groups in helping to develop leadership capabilities in their members," says Aselya Aidarova, a community development officer with DCCA. With the backing of church organizations, the agency runs different non-governmental organization projects from Osh, the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan that is close to the Uzbekistan border. The largely Muslim city has a 3000 year history and is wrapped around a hill named after the prophet Solomon.

There are 161 self help groups supported by DCCA which is in turn backed by the Ecumenical Consortium for Central Asia. ECCA is made up of British-based Christian Aid, DanChurchAid from Denmark, the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation (ICCO) and Norwegian Church Aid. This grouping has made the development of "civil society" a priority because of the collapse of so many services that came to all the Central Asian countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So these Christian organizations are pumping in resources, and working with other NGOs and international organizations. High on the agencies' agenda, and in a milieu that is now predominantly Islamic, is the humbly named "self-help group".

Aidarova cites a number of instances whereby people from self-help groups have been elected to village, town or district governments. This is something that seems to be acceptable to many government officials in Kyrgyzstan, but seems to be make some officials in neighbouring Tajikistan nervous about potential challenges to their authority.

Self help groups for all religions

DCCA has supported the Christian minority in Osh, most of whom belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. Recently, however, Aidarova says DCCA has begun to engage the backing of leaders from all faiths, especially Muslims, who are an overwhelmingly majority, in getting self help groups involved in health issues.

"This is very important because of the influence that religious leaders exert over the community. We need their help to fight HIV and AIDS which are growing in our country," Aidarova told Ecumenical News International. "In March we organized a Round Table in Jalalabad for three oblasts (provinces) at which there were 30 religious leaders present."