A charitable evening was held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on 27th November in order to collect money for 130 children with disabilities in Issyk-Kul. The evening was organized by the Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA) with the help of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Kumtor Operating Company, The Soros-Kyrgyzstan Foundation, FINCA, BMI Airlines and many other commercial and non-commercial organizations working in Kyrgyzstan.

For EFCA staff the time before the charitable event was spent working hard on assessing the needs of children with disabilities in Issyk-Kul and working out ways to help them. EFCA staff together with representatives of Institute of Language Technology made trips to Issyk-Kul and thus formulate a plan to help three rehabilitation centers. These centers were opened fairly recently, in many cases are receiving no external aid and are only staying open thanks to the bare enthusiasm of the parents and guardians of the children. These centers function on a trial and error basis as they do not even have qualified specialists to direct their work or to give advice. However, despite these difficulties people want to help these children. They want the children to have a better life and to really enjoy their youth.

After they had conducted a needs assessment for these children and formulated a plan to help them, all that remained was to find financial aid for the implementation of this. It is then that the EFCA staff came up with the idea of holding a charitable event in order to raise money and attract sponsors and future partners.

Thanks to the efforts of the organizers the charitable event was a great success. As well as the main sponsors of the event, other donors included Hyatt Regency Hotel, Kyrgyz Concept, Demir Kyrgyz International Bank and representatives of Samsung’s Kyrgyz branch. EFCA’s partners very generously donated their goods and services to the charitable event in order to help support children with disabilities.

The program for the evening was both full and interesting and simultaneously informative. At the door guests were handed out questionnaires on the social-economic factors concerning people with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan.The organizers of the event were pleasantly surprised by the extent of their guests’ knowledge as most of the guests answered the majority of questions correctly and prizes were given out to the winners.

The musicians from “Beka” were overcome by the appreciative reception they received as they performed some of the rock classics and their own compositions. Meanwhile the guests also applauded the live orchestra which included Martin Dawson, the Head of the British Ministry of International Development in Kyrgyzstan.

The culmination of the event was an auction and lottery to support children with disabilities. Pictures of famous photographers, felt products, exclusive silver jewelry, modern accessories in the national style were presented as auction lots.

Mirbek Asangariev, chairman of public association “Movement of Young People with Disabilities”, said, “The event was interesting and lively, and it was the first evening in such a format – with specific objectives and plans – conducted in Kyrgyzstan for people with disabilities.”

Erkinbek Kasybekov, chairman of EFCA board of trustees, noted that the charitable evening was conducted on a high level and EFCA staff did a great job.

Bakytgul Tentieva, chairwoman of public association “Beipil”, a representative of one of the rehabilitation centers that will be supported with funds raised at the event, said, “We express sincere gratitude to EFCA for organizing this charitable event and raising money for our children. They really need support, and probably thanks to this help the children’s health will get better and they will be able to become independent in the future. This project is very helpful for us and our organization, as now we are facing with problems of growth, and after receiving technical support we will be able to develop and become an independent organization.”

Thanks to the event, EFCA was able to raise just under 16,000 US dollars, more than the 15,000 they had hoped for.

The money collected will go towards helping 130 children with disabilities through improving the conditions at three rehabilitation centers for people with disabilities. New equipment will be bought for the rehabilitation of individual children, essential repairs will be made to centers, sanitary facilities will be installed and the heating will be fixed in all of the building so that children can work there all year round. Staff from the ILT as well as EFCA staff will give the centers advice about how medical and social staff, rehabilitation staff and the parents and guardians of these children should take effective rehabilitation measures.

The charitable event was one of the first steps on implementing principles of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Kyrgyzstan, when businessmen take responsibility for the development of the society and support vulnerable groups. EFCA will continue with what it has started and will organize such events to support people with disabilities. The guests of the event have expressed their enthusiasm and desire to work more on such initiatives in the future.

EFCA thanks its partners who helped with conducting the charitable evening:
Fashion house “Dilbar”, Coca-Cola Bishkek Bottlers, the Host Restaurant, L’Azzuro Restaurant, the Adriatico Restaurant, PrintModel, Rossiya cinema, Akipress, Ca-news.org, Aqualand Group, MacSolutions Ltd., Combat Paintball Club, the Bacardi Bar, Prague Trade, the Live Bar, American Chamber of Commerce in Kyrgyz Republic, Touristan Host House, OK Radio.