SPARE in Kyrgyzstan

Practical energy projects, energy policy and school energy educational project SPARE.

Partner:

BIOM
+996 312 55 06 07
biom.kg@gmail.com

BIOM is an organisation developed from student’s environmental activities, and was established in 1993. It is a solid organisation with activities within environmental education, biodiversity, energy and climate throughout the country, and BIOM runs several projects within these issues. Cooperation with national authorities and relevant stakeholders within science, international donor community and others is well developed.

Background:
Kyrgyzstan faces huge challenges when it comes to living conditions and economic development. National production in the Kyrgyz Republic is mostly concentrated on primary agricultural goods, and rural population depends to a large extent on natural household. Many Kyrgyz children are totally deprived of education, and both boys and girls fall gradually out of the educational system.

Naturvernforbundet’s local partner BIOM believes that reality is even worse than official statistics show, as regional school authorities tend to make the picture look better in order not to loose financial allocations. Girls are held back due to expected positions as keepers of house and family, while boys more and more often have to work in the fields instead of attending education, replacing their fathers who are absent due to labor migration to Russia and other countries.

Kyrgyzstan lack severely energy sources and infrastructure. Power blackouts have been organized for central areas of the country, and Bishkek has been without electricity for most parts of the day during the winter. Schools take forced holidays from 20th of December and until February; otherwise heating the schools would have been too difficult. This is even more serious as the winter is the period when kids are less absent from education due to work at fields etc. School buildings are in general in bad condition. Even new schools can lack heating system and water/sanitation facilities. Insulation is mostly non-existent, and windows and doors have often wide open cracks.