QLP Kyrgyzstan

The explosive political demonstrations that rocked Kyrgyzstan in early April challenged the USAID Quality Learning Project’s team to engage youth who made up a majority of demonstrators.  QLP’s success with Youth Education Activities in Bishkek’s novostroikas were well received. Then, as spring turned to summer, outbreaks of violence in the country’s impoverished south broadened QLP’s focus.

QLP was able to field an immediate “real-time” response to Kyrgyzstan’s social challenges in its South. Implementers worked to create safe school environments to help students cope with the recent violence.  The QLP team understood that the first people who needed support were school administrators and leaders. Beginning August 1, 2010, QLP partnered with the Kyrgyz Ministry of Education and Science and the Jalalabad Methodology Center to began training school administrators and community leaders in Jalalabad Oblast in conflict resolution and tolerance.

Psycho-social training in Jalal-Abad Oblast is a part of USAID’s QLP emergency response efforts to help stabilize the situation in the South and to increase harmony between communities.  “The training is designed and conducted at just the right time,” said Amangeldi Asanov, principal of the Manas-1000 school which received the training. “Sessions covered in the training are very practical and important. To me, the training content is like helping a person who is searching for water in the desert, or how to provide medical treatment when a patient is ill.”