Kyrgyzstan
Case study: aiura, aged 16
Aiura is 16 and has lived in an orphanage most of her life. This is about to change. In a few months, having completed high school, she will be forced to leave. She doesn’t know where she’ll go. She will need to find a job but with few qualifications and homeless, her options are limited. Other girls in the orphanage who’ve been recruited for weekend jobs in the city now wear nice clothes and make up. Aiura has been asked if she wants a city job but is worried about what she’ll have to do.
Many vulnerable girls are trafficked into prostitution, lured to the city with promises of money and opportunity. This is especially the case at 16 when girls leave with nowhere to go and no one to look out for them.
Aiura needs a safe place to live, someone to help her gain skills for employment and to be there to support her as she finds independence.
That is where Oasis Kyrgyzstan’s Project Erkindik comes in. Erkindik (meaning Freedom) provides vulnerable girls living in orphanages and on the streets a safe place to live and learn the skills necessary for independent living. They have access to further education and vocational training, which are both vital to find a job paying enough for them to support themselves and stay away from traffickers.
The photo shown above is not of Aiura.
Understanding of Costs
To give one girl the support she needs, it costs US$4922 per year. For under $15 a day, girls like Aiura can have access to education, vocational training, housing, food, life skills classes and a social worker. Whether you fund a day, a week, a month or a year you will be helping to keep a girl safe. $5, £50, €500 or ¥500,000 - anything and everything you donate makes a difference.
SUMMARY OF LOCATION AND PROBLEM
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Project Erkindik helps girls in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital.
Kyrgyzstan became an independent country in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the country found its independence, it lost its soviet welfare system and unemployment began to rise. Today, in 2010, 18% of the population are unemployed and 40% live below the poverty line. 1
Despite being one of the poorest countries in the Former Soviet Union, families tend to be quite large with many children living in one house2. Charity organisations and the World Health Organisation are worried about the rates of alcoholism affecting both adults and children. 3
All these problems make it is easy to see why there are so many children and young people living on the streets, in children’s centres or in orphanages.
Children in state care or living on the streets, young people desperately looking for opportunities and ways to earn money become the perfect targets for traffickers.
Why will education help?
Across the country, education is available for boys and girls up to 16 years old. The problem is that when vulnerable girls leave school, there is no support for them and many end up on the street, where they are at the mercy of traffickers. To help stop the most vulnerable disappearing into trafficking networks, further education and vocational training will help set them on the road to a safe and independent life.
Who they are as an organisation
Based in Bishkek, Oasis Kyrgyzstan was registered as a charity in 2008. Oasis Kyrgyzstan focuses on vulnerable persons in youth penal institutions and anti-trafficking activities.
Since 2008, Oasis Kyrgyzstan has had a significant impact on the lives of vulnerable young people thorough its anti-trafficking work. As an example, when young people are released from youth prisons and children’s centres, many have nowhere to go leaving them open to exploitation. Oasis Kyrgyzstan recently taught young people in prisons how to stay safe when they are released.
Project Erkindik is the result of a 9 month research project and numerous consultations with local experts.
