Project Review

Over the last week we have been doing an intensive review of our transition homes, which Oasis has been running in Kyrgyzstan for two and a half years. It has been amazing to hear about what has been achieved... all the young people have continued with their education and some have done really well; two are preparing for university (unheard of for young people from the Reform School which is a bit like Borstall); we have helped some of the young people to receive official documents such as passports and birth certificates which they had not had previously and which are vital in order to get a job; all but one have done internships and had work experience; we have helped some of them to find and contact family members; and all have been kept safe from involvement in serious crime and from being trafficked. This last point is not to be underestimated; for girls from orphanages in particular, there is a high possibility that they may end up working in the sex industry and indeed all the girls in our transitional home know of friends from the institutions where they grew up who have ended up as commercial sex workers.

But alongside all the achievements there are things that have not gone so well; transitional care homes are expensive to run, the costs are on-going, and we have never been able to fund the work as we would like to; for the staff who are with the young people each day the work is also intense and we have not been able to find enough people willing to take on this work for the long term that is needed to build relationships; and helping the young people to move to a point of genuine independence has not happened as well as we would have liked.

The next exciting step is to look to the future - how do we take all these lessons from what has been achieved and what has not gone so well, and improve our work with young people to help them to make a successful transition from a life dependant on the institutions where they have been brought up, to life on their own? There are no easy answers...

Christmas Holidays!

December 25th is not a special holiday in Kyrgyzstan; we even had a discussion as to whether we would close the office (we did!). The children though had broken up from their school so Jim took a few days off and we enjoyed a few days together at home. Christmas Day itself was very different to usual; we got up early and set off early to the nearby mountains to go skiing! As it was not high season and a normal work day, the pistes were almost empty, and Jim and Felix tried snowboarding for the first time. Felix is now hooked and unlikely to ever step into skis again! Christmas lunch was a ham roll each, but Jane had prepared a wonderful roast for the evening and we all thoroughly enjoyed our first December 25th in Bishkek.

On the last day of 2012 we completed our family challenge for the year of running 1,000 km (see our running blog - link on the right). We ran in melting snow and +4 degrees which felt almost tropical after the temperatures of the previous few weeks.

Whilst Christmas Day is not a holiday, the New Year is, and big time! We saw the old year out and the new year in at our flat with some friends and at midnight watched from our balcony as fireworks erupted all over the city in celebration. There was no planned display - people simply set them off wherever they were, and the sky was constantly lit up. It was an impressive sight!

And as for new years resolutions... we recently watched 'the Age of Stupid', a film set in the future and imagines what the world might be like after catastrophic climate change. The narrator looks back to 2008, when human beings still had the opportunity to do something and asks why we didn't. It is was a timely reminder and prompt about the realities of human induced climate change and our response to it. Among other things, we will work out our carbon footprint now that we are living in Bishkek (and making more flights) and work out how we can both reduce and take responsibility for it.

Cold!

The temperatures have plummeted over the last week and are down to minus twenty at night and rise to  minus ten to fifteen during the day. So it is quite cold!

Apparently there is a saying in Norway (which Berghaus have picked up on in their advertising) that there is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. Before we came to Kyrgyzstan we made sure to buy some good cold weather kit and it has certainly paid off. When we go outside, we are bundled up in base layers, fleeces and duvet jackets, snow boots and inner and outer gloves... and it is all very necessary, and we have not - yet - got really cold. We have even been for a few runs! (see our running blog (link on the right)).

At times the cold weather is fun. Felix had his birthday party last Saturday and part of the time was a snow fight whilst we walked to the nearby bowling alley. As it was so cold the snow did not make good snowballs... but people could be well and truly smothered if they walked under a tree that was shaken at the right moment!

But it is not always fun; over the last few days many homes in the city have been without gas, which has strained the electricity system causing some of the circuits in the city to breakdown. So far we are fine (it probably helps that our block of flats is near a number of government ministries and the police headquarters!), but several friends and the Oasis boys transitional home have been without gas and electricity for much of the last two days. Fortunately the boys home is quite close and were able to have their supper cooked at our house; but it will be a cold night for them and many others in the city tonight - and perhaps for a few more nights until the gas is sorted out.

“Her lungs don’t fit in her chest…”

Last week one of the girls in our Transitional Home for girls was reunited with her family. The details are murky, but it seems that when she was very young her parents divorced and her mother went to Russia to find work, leaving her with her father. Other family members cared for her for a while but she was eventually abandoned and found herself in a state home which she had to leave when she was fifteen – at which point she moved to our transitional home. She is normally a quiet girl but is now so excited to be reconnected with her family, who are now in Russia that she is bouncing about the place and bursting to tell everyone her news. As they say here, ‘her lungs don’t fit in her chest’!

Sadly, this story of abandonment is all too familiar – we were shocked to discover that in fact, between 80 to 90% of the 11,000 children in state orphanages and homes in Kyrgyzstan have parents and family members who are alive but out of touch – or who are unwilling to look after them. The 12 young people in Oasis’ transitional homes are no different. They may have ended up in these places because of family breakdown, parents migrating for work reasons, or the mistaken but widely held belief that a child can have a better life being looked after by the state. Another of the girls in the Tranistional Home was visited by her mother recently – she herself had been brought up in an orphanage, and saw no reason why her 3 children (the other two are elsewhere in Bishkek) should not have a similar upbringing whilst she works in Russia.

In other news... our colleagues who were evacuated in September are doing really well. Their son, Josh is doing all the things that a four month old should be and they are looking to return in May next year - hurrah! We have had some good snow which has all but gone as the temperatures have been relatively warm - minus five or so at night, but even up to about 10 degrees in the day. But there is some good cold weather on the way - Felix's ipod (which generally gives a pretty good forecast!) tells us that it will be minus 13 on Friday during the day and minus 20 at night. Bring it on!!!

Difficulties with Opportunities

Recently someone translating for me as I talked to Oasis staff had problems when I used the word 'challenge' - as in 'one of our challenges as an organisation is...' It seems that there is not a good way to translate this word, and his suggestion was to translate it as 'a difficulty with opportunity' - which rather defeats the object of the phrase which is to frame a situation with positive rather than negative language!

So, one of our recent 'difficulties with opportunity' is that some of the boys in our transition home were caught breaking into a local shop early one morning. It is the first time that they have been in trouble with the authorities in this way, and is completely out of character (at least for who they have become over the last year or two with us) - but has the potential to land them in prison. They have been released back into our care for twenty eight days whilst the case is brought and then they will be sentenced - either a prison term or community service. The boys now feel foolish and sorry, and the staff who have worked with them feel very let down and hurt; but we are picking up the pieces. It has certainly been a challenging few days - but it is not clear what the opportunity in this might be...

On a lighter note, we had our first proper snow of the season - and everything carried on as normal! No traffic tailbacks, no schools closed, and no one was late for work (or no later than usual...) And we had a beautiful walk to school!

Some cultural moments

I (Jim) went for my first haircut in Kyrgyzstan last week. After 10 weeks here it had got a bit long, so, armed with my best Russian and some sign language I explained that I normally have a 'number 3' clipper setting on the back and at the sides. The hairdresser looked surprised and instead suggested a number 9, which I argued with (although it is hard to do this forcibly in my faltering Russian!) After some discussion we agreed to start with the 9 and if necessary work our way down...

I am happy to advise that it is worth taking the advice of local hairdressers; it turns out that a Russian '9' is equivalent to a UK '3'. Disaster and embarrassment were averted!

On Saturday night we had a cultural family outing - to the ballet! The beautiful ballet and opera house is about 8 minutes walk from our apartment and we had a wonderful evening watching Swan Lake. The two lead dancers were from Russia and were stunning and the rest of the company and the orchestra were local and also gave a magnificent performance. It has definitely whetted our appetite for the local arts!

We are enjoying the food; once a week we have a lady help with cleaning and she cooks a meal to a local recipe and often teaches Jane how to do it. As you can see from the picture, one local dish of metre long noodles (lagmann) can be a challenge to eat!






Finally, we are developing a little more confidence with our Russian ability and are trying to take opportunities to try it out. On leaving the team meeting last week, Jane confidently stood up and pronounced that she had to leave at which all the staff fell about laughing. Apparently she had announced that she needed to loose weight!

Winter is coming!

On Saturday we were in summer clothes, enjoying the autumn and leaves changing colour - as the picture shows. The city parks have been really beautiful. Today Jim cycled home in falling snow! According to weather forecasts it will be back to 15 degrees again in a couple of days, so we are certainly not settled in for winter yet, but it is a reminder that it is on it's way...







There are a few things to fill in from previous blog posts...

Baby Joshua (see posts on 19th and 24th September) is doing really well. In fact, the doctors are so satisfied with his progress that they don't want to see him again, and have given him authorisation to fly, so the family will be flying to America at the weekend. He and his family will have been in the UK for one day short of a month, and it has been an amazing time of healing, recovery and unexpected help and care.

Work-wise things are going well albeit with lots of challenges, not least with the sudden departure of a key member of staff (i.e. Baby Joshua's dad who was overseeing much of the finance and admin). To give an update on the challenges we mentioned earlier (17th September)... we are still looking for house parents for our girls transition home - the sort of person we were looking for proved very difficult to find, so we have slightly changed the role; we have found a property for the girls to move to and they are happily living there (we had tea with them yesterday and they won 2 of the 3 games of Uno we played with them!); and we are building good relationships with people (Jane's chocolate cake has helped with this a lot I think!)

There are a number of other challenges to add to the list; on the less interesting side picking up the finance and accounts without a proper handover, and implementing a number of short term (6 month) decisions whilst a longer term strategy is developed. More excitingly, we have loads of volunteers who have offered to help on our vulnerable youth programme, helping with homework, providing extra tuition in maths and other school subjects, teaching English, music and so on - and we need to manage and lead these people well.

One more issue we are working through is that sadly one of the girls who recently left the girls transitional home lost her baby last weekend; he was only 2 months old. She has been staying with one of our staff for the last few days and we need to help her to make good decisions about her future, where she lives (she had been at a hostel for young mothers and their children) and so on.

It is hard to remember that we have only been here for 8 weeks - it seems a lot longer and we are feeling very much at home! But as the seasons change we know that there is much to learn about this new home of ours...