by Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah and Mathijs Pelkmans*

06 September 1999

BONN: Kok-Jangak is a former mining village located in the south-western province of Jalal-Abad in Kyrgyzstan. The collapse of the centralized economy of the Soviet era has resulted in deteriorating infrastructure, and a political transition to market economy has not filtered through to benefit most villagers. To make matters worse, heavy rains washed out a bridge connecting the Kok-Jangak village to other parts of the province. Villagers decided to take matters into their own hands. They pooled scarce resources available to them and started to rebuild the bridge.

In traditional Kyrgyz culture, community mobilization and voluntarism is not new. The traditional "Ashar" (a traditional volunteer initiative whereby the community comes together to solve problems of common concern) still thrives in most rural communities. The village received a small financial contribution and some assistance in the form of construction materials, iron rods and concrete blocks from the regional administration office. Coincidentally, the UNV team based in Jalal-Abad had started identifying poor and vulnerable groups in the neighbouring village of Kok-Jangak for credit under the UNDP-assisted Participatory Poverty Alleviation project. The Volunteers, UNV specialist Mathijs Pelkmans and national UNV specialist Himia Suerkulova, learned about the plight of the villagers and were eager to work in Kok-Jangak village. However, access to the community was difficult because of the uncompleted bridge.

In order to facilitate their work in the formation of Self-Help Groups (groups of five or six villagers encouraged to work together to overcome difficulties), the UNVs decided to apply for a Programme Officers Empowerment Mechanism (POEM) grant, which provides each Programme Officer with US$10,000 in a bid to make the UNV programme more flexible and responsive in the field. After careful analysis of the request, an amount of US$600 was released to the UNVs for the continuation of work on the bridge.

The UNVs monitored the work and, most importantly, ensured that members of the community participated. With the reconstruction of this vital bridge, Kok-Jangak is now reconnected to farming land and the road network. Since the bridge was repaired, UNVs have been able to visit the village to carry out their role in promoting development. And one old woman said: "I didn't go to the centre for more than six months because I am too weak to climb up and down the ravine, but now I can just walk or ask someone to drive me."

* Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah is the UNV Programme Officer in Kyrgyzstan. Mathijs Pelkmans is a UNV rural development specialist in Jalal-Abad.