Telling Our Story

Rural and mountainous Tajikistan has the highest under-five child mortality rate in Central Asia[1] and many of these deaths are caused, directly or indirectly, by chronic malnutrition. The Director for the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) program in the Vakhdat region, Dr. Olga Akobirova, says that parents often don’t know how to feed their children.

The USAID Agricultural Linkages Plus Project (AgLinks Plus) sponsors a series of variety competitions after each agricultural cropping season.

In rural and farming communities, word of mouth is the most viral and meaningful means of information dissemination—even more so than Facebook! Farmers are as curious and competitive as they are cautious; they are always interested in what crops their neighbors are growing, what approaches they use, and, most importantly, what results they achieve.

Elite Honey LLP, based in Kostanai, Kazakhstan, keeps abreast of the latest news and business approaches in management, marketing, and logistics, and strives to be a top company in honeycraft. For this reason, in spring 2012 it was recruited by USAID’s Regional Economic Cooperation Project for its intensive training program.

Elmira Karashalova works as a nurse at the outpatient clinic in her small village in rural Kazakhstan where her main duty is to administer the daily medication needed for recovering tuberculosis (TB) patients to become fully healthy. When Elmira took over this duty, she often found it frustrating. “Patients do not always remember that they have to take medicine; do not come regularly and don’t understand the importance of TB treatment. At first I felt very annoyed and nervous; I criticized patients severely for being late and for missing visits.”