EFCA has been encouraging community involvement among students in Southern Kyrgyzstan through its Student Leadership Development Program in Osh. The project aims to increase and channel leadership potential among students at Osh State University, the Uzbek Humanities-Pedagogical Institute, and Kyrgyz Uzbek University. Students are trained in leadership, conflict resolution, volunteer work, and fundraising. In all, about 600 students have participated in the Program, and many have been inspired to rethink their conceptions of leadership and community involvement. “One student told me: ‘Before, I thought a woman’s role was limited to the family, but your seminars have helped me realize that a woman’s goals in life should extend beyond the family to some kind of broader impact,’” related Elmira Kim, the Program’s coordinator.

The Program is centered on the Uzbek Humanities-Pedagogical Institute, a branch of Osh State University. About half of the Institute’s students are from Uzbekistan, while the rest are ethnic Uzbeks who live in Kyrgyzstan (about 40 percent of Osh’s population consists of ethnic Uzbeks). They study Uzbek language and literature with the aim of becoming teachers and educators. “Many Uzbek students decide to study in Kyrgyzstan because education here is cheaper and of better quality,” explained Kim. Moreover, for many students who live in the Uzbek Fergana Valley, Osh is closer to home than Andijon. Most of these students, Kim explained, return to Uzbekistan upon completing their studies.

The Student Leadership Development Program recently sponsored four mini-projects on social mobilization in order to encourage community engagement. These projects, Youth Against Drugs, Respecting Traffic Laws, Youth Against HIV and AIDS, and Sport: The Foundation of Health, were planned and implemented entirely by students. “Kyrgyzstan’s ethnic Uzbek community is not very open. We believed that we could reach out to them by working through students,” explained Kim.

In order to spread an anti-drug message, students staged an Uzbek play entitled “Tolpa” (“The Crowd”). The play was performed by the Uzbek Humanities-Pedagogical Institute’s amateur theater, which has been staging Uzbek-language plays for ten years, and tells the story of a young man named Samandar who falls in with a drug-abusing crowd. Complete with a love triangle and a tragic ending, “Tolpa” is a stark and engaging portrayal of the dangers drugs present. “We wanted to show the dark side of drug addiction, and to make it interesting,” explained Elmurod Mamasadikov, 22, who played Samandar.

A crew of about 40 students executed everything from costume-making to set design and, after almost two months of rehearsals, the play was presented to schoolchildren and students at Uzbek-language schools around Osh. “They wanted to present realistic examples to make people think,” said Kim. “The fact that everything was done by students made their message easier to accept.” All in all, the play was staged six times to a total audience of about 450 people.

“I think this is an effective means of fighting drug addiction,” said Mamasadikov, a recent graduate of Uzbek Humanities-Pedagogical Institute who is now Director of the Leadership Development Center opened through the Student Leadership Development Project. “The students who saw our performances responded very positively.”

The play’s success does not mark the end of the Uzbek Humanities-Pedagogical Institute’s community involvement. Students recently submitted a funding proposal to the World Bank for a conflict resolution project centered on the idea of dialogue through theater, and are thinking about how to expand their work. “We started with the play, a small project to show the dangers of drug addiction. Now we are thinking about releasing a book, or maybe making a movie so that we can have a larger impact,” Mamasadikov said. “Before, we never thought we could achieve anything like this. Now we know that we can make a difference.”

Author: Maria Blackwood