local business Transport Company No 4; the social protection department; two local newspapers; 

Djizak regional television; and the ped institute. The Center has agreements of cooperation with all 

these organizations; for example, 1) Transport Company No 4 provides transportation to staff of the 

Center 2) the social protection department provides the center with office space and installed a phone 

line, and 3) the ped institute provides rooms for workshops and NGO meetings. 

Uishin   Social Center for rural women.  

Community members in the remote Kashkadariya village Beshchasma identified the problem of 

unemployment among women as a priority problem and established an initiative group to develop a 

solution. Counterpart supported their project to train sixty women to sew and weave carpets. While 

implementing this project the initiative group registered as the NGO Social Center Uishin. One year 

after the completion of the project the NGO not only increased the number of girls trainees, but also 

expanded its geographic coverage. Now girls and young women from nearby villages of Past Uishin, 

Yukori Uishin, Mirzatup and Chilchivut are involved in trainings. Eight trained girls set up a 

workshop to make carpets, others are making carpets at home having obtained a license. In all, eighty 

women have improved their economic situation and on average their monthly family budgets have 

doubled. The NGO began to work on psychological support of women to address the high rate of 

suicides among woman in this area. The community and the local authorities support the center's 

activity. The village council provided the center with four additional rooms for trainings and local 

residents helped with creating proper conditions for woman. 

Volunteerism 

The NGOs in Djizak region started to actively involve volunteers in their work. 

One of the hindering factors for the development of NGOs in this region is the lack of professional 

staff and limited resources. The Samarkand CSSC conducted training in  Work with Volunteers in 

NGOs  for NGOs in the region and achieved the following results: 

The NGO Sevicnh had no volunteers. The director not only lacked the knowledge to motivate 

volunteers, but also didn't understand how important the volunteers are. After the training Sevinch 

developed a strategy for working with volunteers and attracted four volunteers to its work.  

The leader of the NGO Protection of Consumers' Rights had been working practically alone. 

After the training six volunteers started working with the organization.  

The  Center for Public Education was having the problems with the fluctuation of volunteers. 

They developed a strategy for motivating volunteers to stay over longer periods of time. To date 

five volunteers have been working in the Center for more than six months.  

The  Information Resource Center made contracts with volunteers and defined in detail their 

duties and responsibilities, which increased the effectiveness of the volunteers work.  

Media/Outreach 

First Steps to Integration  

In Bukhara there are about 10,000 gypsies (lyulyu) living in isolation, 90% of whom are illiterate and 

unemployed. They survive on earnings from panhandling, fortune telling and other small trades. City 

residents avoid them, and employers refuse to acknowledge them. The NGO Etnos is the first public 

organization committed to raising public awareness of the problems of lyulyus and to support their 

indigenous culture and creative work. Etnos, headed by a Bukhara TV correspondent, used 

consultations, trainings and technical support from the Bukhara CSSC to develop a project to produce 

a series of programs about the lyulyus and to establish an ethnographic ensemble. Etnos, with funding 

from Soros Foundation, has generated a number of results: 1) After seeing a program on the lyulyus, 

the local authorities approved requests for a plot in the cemetery after years of denying such requests. 

2)  Etnos with the help from business structures and local authorities organized New Year's 

celebrations in the lyulyus communities, during which adults and children enjoyed food and clothing 

from the city administration and public organizations and received presents for the first time in their 

lives. 3) An ensemble group was organized, who debuted on the local New Year performance on TV.  

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