“Because, Red Crescent is behind of us”
Eshquvvat Boboqulov is a very smart and active member of his own community. Despite his age, Eshquvvat-bobo uses his 71 years’ experience of life to change the life of his neighbors in Fayzbakhsh village of Danghara district, south of Tajikistan into better. He is a member of local Red Crescent committee and recently a mini-project of his committee won a grant of Finnish Red Cross to construct water supply system and to finally free children and women of the village from the fetching water.
Fayzbakhsh inhabitants accessed the clean drinking water in the framework of the RCST Primary Organization Development Programme. The Tajikistan Red Crescent Society started to implement this programme two years ago with the support of the Finnish Red Cross. Mr. Kamoliddin Abdulloev, RCST Primary Organization Development Programme Coordinator says, the programme aims to reduce the risk of emergencies and infectious diseases in vulnerable families of Tajikistan through changing of behavior and capacity building. He says: “During two years of the project implementation Participatory Rural Appraisal, Project Design and Village Development trainings were conducted for the community representatives, which was directly connected to improve primary organizations’ knowledge on identifying problems, planning and indicating the ways of solutions to the donors and ask for support in solving their problems“.
Though, more than 60% of Central Asia fresh water resources concentrated in Tajikistan, the overall situation with water and sanitation in the country remains poor. All water infrastructures whether for supply and sanitation, irrigation or flood protection, are in poor condition. Limited access to clean water and adequate sanitation exposes people, especially children to serious infectious illnesses, such as diarrhea and typhoid diseases. According to the World Health Organization, some 60% of all infectious diseases in Tajikistan are caused by people’s poor access to safe drinking water. The country, considering its location and geographical character, often faces natural disasters, electricity supply shortages, and threats to food security, which negatively affect economic growth and human development. According to the officials, some 85% of Tajikistan’s area is threatened by floods and mudflows, and 32% is situated in a high mudflow risk zone. Earthquakes are frequent and represent a substantial threat in many parts of the country. According to the CoES of the Republic, 121 natural disasters happened in the republic in 2011.
All these problems make the life of poor families, especially in the outskirts of the country, in the mountainous and valley villages, hard and dangerous. In order to solve the problems that villages face, it is necessary to have organizational skills and some amount of money. Most of young men, labor force of the villages leaved their motherland and families to look for a job far from their homes, in Russia and Kazakhstan. The exact number of labor migrants is unknown, but estimated at around one million, which is huge number taking into consideration that the population of the country is only about 8 million. Mostly women and children remained in the villages. Another barrier to solve the infrastructure problems in the villages is financial inability of the villagers. As Eshquvvat-bobo, our beneficiary says, if there’s money, they would somehow solve the problems: “I live in this village all my life. We always had difficulties with the lack of potable water, we appealed to different governmental and non-governmental organizations, but none helped us. We could not grow any kind of vegetables or the fruits, children every time were late to the school, as they had to deliver water from the 2 kilometers far”.
Almost each village has the same story. Fotima Qodirova, a cleaning woman of school #9 of Navdeh village in Norak city with long years of experience in fetching water tells her story: “All these years we had to deliver water to our school, which has more than 250 schoolchildren from far place. My colleagues and I had to bring water to wash the classrooms, the halls, the windows, etc. It was inexpressibly difficult for us”.
And one day everything has been changed in the lives of these villages. Eshquvvat-bobo from Fayzbakhsh village of Danghara: “Only after the first meeting with Red Crescent representatives, a hope was born in our hearts. They said that they are ready to help us, but we should lead the process ourselves. We were taught how to prepare our project proposal and how to implement it. And we started. The work was put so good that we had been involved from the beginning till the process of implementation then maintaining system”.
Fotima-khola from Navdeh village of Norak: “… and now we have the main source of life – water in our homes. A pipeline was laid to deliver water from chashma (spring). We do not have to overcome the enormous distance for fetching water anymore. Now we save our time and our health. Now children can spend more time in studying”.
Fayzbakhsh and Navdeh water supply systems are just two examples of projects supported under the RCST Primary Organization Development Programme. The programme is financially supported by the Finnish Red Cross and Mari Paajanen, Finnish RC Programmes Delegate to Tajikistan, says all of four winner projects implemented with 100% community participation. She says the communities were provided only with pipes and all other activities were implemented by the villagers themselves: “Sustainability of our projects depends on the sustainable actions of communities. Our main goal was to improve community representatives’ skills and knowledge on identifying their main problems, analyzing them and looking for the ways of solving them. Last year, when we conducted PRA and Village Development Plan trainings, we concluded the results by preparing village profiles and village development plan jointly with the beneficiaries. That time 12 small social projects were proposed and all of them were supported. This year a competition was organized to find out the results of the Project Designing training”.
Fotima-khola, a cleaner of the school in Norak does not hide her happiness from being free of fetching water and expresses her gratitude to the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan: “I would like to join the primary organization as other women from our village. I would like to be able to do something for my community, for my society. All women of our village are ready to implement other social projects, as we know that now the Red Crescent is behind of us”.
Ҷамъияти Ҳилоли Аҳмари Тоҷикистон (ҶҲАТ), Кумитаи байнулмилалии Салиби Сурх (КБСС) ва намояндагии Федератсияи байнулмилалии ҷамъиятҳои Салиби Сурх ва Ҳилоли Аҳмар (ФБҶ СС ва ҲА) 

“Наҷотдиҳандагони мо омаданд!” – ҳар боре, ки дари хонаи Елена Степановская, зани танҳои 89-соларо кормандони Ҳилоли Аҳмар мекӯбанд, ӯ чунин мегӯяд:“Наҷотдиҳандагони мо омаданд”. Сарфи назар аз синну солаш ин бону ҳанӯзам ҷавон ва қавиирода ба назар мерасад ва худаш ҳам ин фикрро тасдиқ мекунад:“Ман пир нестам, ман ҳанӯзам тавоноӣ дорам ва шукри Худо, шукри Ҳилоли Аҳмар, шукри ҳамширае, ки ҳафтае ду бор хонаи ман меояд, дар корҳои хона ба ман ёрӣ медиҳад, фишорамро месанҷад, бо ман сӯҳбат мекунад, ба ҳарфи дилам гӯш медиҳад, маро танҳо намегзорад. Ӯ акнун дигар барои ман танҳо ҳамшираи шафқате аз Ҳилоли Аҳмар нест, ӯ ҳамакнун духтари ман аст.” – ашк дар чашмони ин модар ҳалқа мезанад.
Бахши Ҷамъияти Ҳилоли Аҳмари Тоҷикистон дар шаҳри Душанбе сар аз моҳи апрели соли 2011 бо пуштибонии молии Салиби Сурхи Ҷопон ва бо талошҳои ФБҶ СС ва ҲА лоиҳаи “Аёдати пирони танҳо”-ро ба роҳ мондааст ва ин лоиҳа 110 солрафтагони шаҳри Душанберо, ки ҳеҷ касе надоранд ва аксаран аз ҷомеаи русзабони кишваранд, фаро мегирад. Дувоздаҳ ҳамшираи шафқат аз Ҳилоли Аҳмари Тоҷикистон ҳафтае ҳадди ақал ду бор ба хонаи ин пиронсолон мераванд, манзилҳои онҳоро тамиз мекунанд, барояшон рӯзномаву ғизову хӯрокворӣ харида мебаранд, фишори хунашонро месанҷанд ва ба ҳарфи дилашон гӯш медиҳанд.


