‘In general, the children in the orphanages were well nourished but
their social histories are shocking. Th ere is a lot of poverty,
alcoholism and abuse. Th e facilities were old, over-crowded and not
the cleanest. This is not a refl ection on the staff though – they were
dedicated to the children despite being paid less than US$1 a day.’ Th
is is part of a report by Footprints Fundraising on one of the projects
that Saltanat Rasulova saw during her six years working for UNICEF in
her native Kyrgyzstan. It helps explain why she decided to return to
education and is so committed to making the absolute most of her time
in Oxford.
Saltanat, one of the first cohort of Weidenfeld
scholars, is studying for an MSc in Comparative Social Policy in the
Social Policy and Social Work Department. She had left education, after
studying for a Higher Diploma in Pedagogy at Kyrgyzstan State National
University, to join UNICEF as a programme assistant with social policy
and child protection the main focus of her work.Kyrgyzstan lies on the
north-western border of China and is described in its BBC profile as ‘a
country of striking beauty and towering peaks. It became independent
with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The economic situation
is dire, particularly in the south, where unemployment is very high and
poverty rife.’ ‘This’, says Saltanat, ‘has meant great challenges for
the government, especially on issues like infant mortality, child
poverty, violence and abuse against children, child labour and dealing
with large numbers of street children and those in orphanages.’UNICEF,
with its commitment to realising and protecting children’s rights, is
one of the agencies working in Kyrgyzstan to help the government.
Saltanat Rasulova
‘Results
do not come overnight’, says Saltanat. ‘As a country, we are
open-minded enough to realise that we have a problem and are prepared
to accept help. We now have policies in place but we need to put them
into practice. We used to rely on institutions, like orphan ages, to
take children whose families could not afford to bring them up. Now we
are trying to do more to support them at home. But to do that
effectively we need more resources and better skills.’
Feeling
the need to expand her own technical skills and understanding, Saltanat
returned to education to take a four-year Higher Diploma in Social Work
at Bishkek Humanities University. She studied while continuing her role
at UNICEF, attending the university three times a year, and completing
her studies in the evenings and at weekends. But she felt she needed to
do more: ‘I wanted to learn more about the advances that the world has
made in social policy and to be able to return to my country to put
them into practice. Since the transition from the Soviet Union to an
independent state, Kyrgyzstan is facing a number of new child-related
concerns. Children are facing new threats and families are in distress
as the social welfare and protection systems are not adequately
designed to prevent risks and to sufficiently support families.’
To
achieve her aim, Saltanat decided to apply to Oxford. ‘Everyone knows
about Oxford’, she says. ‘For young people in my country, having a
scholarship is vital. With incomes and prices as they are there, I
cannot even imagine how I could have afforded to come without financial
support.’
Saltanat describes being in Oxford as ‘a phenomenal
experience. I like the system here. It is quite complicated with all
the buildings and people and passwords, but there’s also lots of help
from the college and from the University, with the IT and the
libraries, and everyone has been really friendly.’ Saltanat has an
academic supervisor and two mentors in her college, St Cross, to help
her, and there is additional support from the Weidenfeld programme.
‘This has also helped me to settle in quickly’, she says. ‘I am really
grateful to them for that and for the opportunity to meet the other
scholars who have been doing different jobs in different
countries.’Another of the Weidenfeld scholars – Ernist Abdirashitov,
studying Evidence-Based Social Intervention at Kellogg College – is
also from Kyrgyzstan and Saltanat has met a third person from her
country, who came here with support from the Chevening Programme.
Saltanat
is determined to ‘get as much as possible from being at Oxford’,
including learning French because she feels it will help her with the
next stage of her career. Having completed her postgraduate year, she
plans to continue to study or to work in the UK or elsewhere in the
European Community before going home. She says: ‘I will go back – I
must go back – but I need more skills to take with me, so that I can
return to make my own contribution.’
