"People trust in us and we try our best."

Earlier in the week we spent two days with one of our partner organisations; Rights and Prosperity, in Muminabad region in southern Tajikistan. A five hour drive from the capital Dushanbe, this region is remote. Halfway into our journey we stopped to take photographs of the panoramic mountains and standing there it was as though I was on the edge of the world.

 

For the people living in the villages, many are farmers; selling their produce at the local market, as well as having to rely on additional support in remittances sent from family members working in Russia. Even the one hour journey to the nearby town of Kulyab is too expensive for many people to make.

 

Rights and Prosperity are working across Tajikistan, supporting remote and vulnerable communities like the Shahraki Leningrad jamoat, to claim their legal rights through the introduction of public chambers. The public chambers are made up of volunteers that are legally trained by Rights and Prosperity to assist local people in understanding their rights and entitlements and ensuring that recent government legislation, benefits the local population. The volunteers at the chambers have helped communities to gain access to clean water, as well as helping to resolve land rights disputes and other social problems. They also go into communities to tell them that support exists free of charge. Slowly communities are starting to feel empowered to solve the problems in their villages.

 

Gulchehra is a 50-year-old mother of four. She spent 18 years working in the local prosecutor’s office helping to advise people about their problems. Ill health forced her to leave work, but she still received calls from people within the community asking for her help. She decided to become a volunteer at the public chamber in Shahraki Leningrad when it opened in 2009. Now she helps people to solve a range of problems.

 

She said: “When I see people with problems I really feel like I should help them. It was something that was inside me when I graduated. People trust in us and we try our best.”

 

It was inspiring to talk to Gulchehra and hear about the work that she does at the chamber as a volunteer for the benefit of her community. She and the other volunteers often use their own money to pay for phone calls and transport to local government offices and the office space that they currently use is rented, which means that they can only see people once a week. As we were leaving, Gulchehra told us that she is thinking of using one of the bedrooms in her home as a public chamber so that they can see people more frequently and help them.

 

Accountable governance isn’t always the easiest programme of work to talk about, but the work of Rights and Prosperity and the commitment of people like Gulchehra is clearly desperately needed in a country as vulnerable as Tajikistan.