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Speaking out - Children from institutions address ministerial meeting in Bishkek

Ministers from central Asian governments are meeting in Kyrgyzstan for the next three days to discuss how they can reform their child care systems. UNICEF research shows that during economic hard times even more central Asian children face abandonment in state-run institutions and maternity hospitals. It means about 160,000 children in these countries are currently growing-up in institutions; a high proportion of those abandoned are children with disabilities.

The UNICEF Central and eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States Regional Director, Steven Allen, told delegates Governments must invest in services that prevent separation of families and children. These are cost-effective and caring solutions. "In the coming years, maintaining the focus on child care reform, and investing heavily in measures to prevent children from being separated from their biological families needs to be a priority to all countries here today."

Ministers from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan were addressed by 15-year-old Maftuna – who lives in a hostel for homeless children. She talked about the importance of children being able to freely and creatively express themselves, especially if adults are to better promote children's rights. Six one minutejunior videos were shown to delegates; videos produced by children living in institutions, who described the lack of love and discrimination they face.

Afterwards, Maftuna said she hoped that if nothing else the ministers would remember one thing. "They may just be videos but they are our means of describing our problems. I hope they will not forget us and understand that that we are still here." The Child Care Reform Consultation is being held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, between May 12th and 14^th. It aims to secure government commitments to a number of child care systems reforms.

Video produced by Olga Gurova at the OneMinutesJr workshop in Bishkek

OneMinutesJr workshop in Kyrgyzstan - Day 5

A short night and another long day are behind the participants of the OneMinutesJr workshop in Bishkek, but now the films are all finished. In the afternoon, the trainers still worked on the last few films together with the young "directors" while the rest of the participants visited the circus in the Kyrgyz capital. Many of the children come from orphanages and boarding-schools in villages quite far from Bishkek, so for some of them it was a "first ever" and Anara (14) is still impressed with the animals and the acrobats when the presentation of the OneMinutesJr videos starts after dinner.

However, when the lights are off and the films the children produced over the course of the past five days come on, the circus is history and the lives and the stories of the children take center stage again. All the films are applauded by the children and their chaperones. It is once again amazing to see how many good ideas were turned into little video artworks in only five days.

In 10 days from tomorrow, experts and politicians from Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Turkey will meet for the international forum "Buillding and Reforming Child Care Systems". The films produced by the children and teenagers this week will get their next big screening at the forum - to show the decision-makers what it is really like to grow up in a child care institution in Central Asia. Everybody who participated in the workshop now hopes that the films will have an impact on the forum participants in mid-May - and maybe even a lasting impact on the children's lives.

Bishkek, Kyrgzystan - May 1, 2009 - Chris Schuepp

OneMinutesJr workshop in Kyrgyzstan - Day 4

More filming is on the agenda on the fourth day of the OneMinutesJr workshop in Bishkek. Half of the films have been shot, so it is time now to wrap up the others and get to the computers for the editing process. All films today can be filmed in different locations in the Kyrgyz capital.

Ulan (15) takes us to his home. He has a real home, with his mother, his father and eight brothers and sisters. His home is only about 12 square meters big, much to small for a family of eleven people. Therefore, his parents have placed him and several others of the older children of the family in a children's home. Ulan says: "I am happy that I still have a family and I always look forward to seeing them, but I also know that we are too poor to afford a bigger place and that our apartment is not big enough for all of us."

In the afternoon, we visit an institution that gives street children from Bishkek a temporary home. The children sleep in dormitories with 15 beds per room. Privacy is basically unheard of, just like at Ulan's family's room, where three generations live on 12 square meters. The children here are happy that they have a place to sleep at least and that they can visit the adjacent school, but it is still tough for them to grow up without their parents.

Maftuna (15) lives here. Her film is about the stigma she carries, being a child from a home for homeless children. She has experienced social exclusion at school and this is exactly what she will show in her OneMinutesJr video. It's a scene from her own life when her new classmates exclude her just because of the fact that she doesn't have any parents anymore.

Almost all of the videos have been filmed now and "only" need to be edited before they are shown at the big presentation for everybody who has been involved in the process tomorrow in the late afternoon. It is remarkable that the children do not only talk about their lives in the institutions but also think a lot about how they got there or how others are getting there. Most of them come from broken or extremely poor families. The fact that many of them focus on "the road that leads to the children's home" is a reminder that when we talk about child care reform and children in institutions, it is always important to keep in mind that every effort should be made to protect children in their families, to educate parents and support them raising their own children as good as they can.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - April 30, 2009 - Chris Schuepp

OneMinutesJr workshop in Kyrgyzstan - Day 3

Day 3 of the workshop in Bishkek is the big filming day. The 20 participants split up in three groups after breakfast and go out filming. One group takes a minibus to the Chui-Tokmok boarding-school about 90 minutes East of Bishkek. The second group faces a three hour drive to Panfilovska to the West of the Kyrgyz capital. The third groups has found locations for the filming in the city center of Bishkek, so they are the first to get the cameras rolling.Alina gets the equipment ready, decides that she wants to have Kanimet as her cameraman and off they go to the busiest street in Bishkek to interview people. Their question: "What can be done to make the lives of children in institutions better?" Sometimes it's good to simply ask thepeople in the streets to put things into perspective.

At about the same time Alina is done with her "vox pops", the Chui-Tokmok group reaches its destination. The main project here is to show the toilets - or the lack of toilets, to be precise. It was hard to believe for us when Olya told us about the sanitary situation in her boarding-school yesterday when she came up with the idea to produce her OneMinutesJr video about this. But what we see today is simply shocking and hard to describe.

There are four holes in the ground in a shack outside. There are no doors. There is no roof. There are mud puddles in front of two of the toilets and the other two holes in the ground also do not look very inviting. The girls from the boarding-school are all dressed up for the visitors from Bishkek, but their shiny shoes and white socks create a surreal image when you see them jumping between mud puddles and human feces. Everybody involved in the shooting of this film hopes that this situation will change with the upcoming forum in Bishkek - or even sooner. To the trainers it is immediately clear from the footage taken in Chui-Tokmok that this will be one of the most shocking films of the whole workshop.

However, it needs to be mentioned of course that the situation is not as bad in other places. Trainer David tells us about the caring and friendly atmosphere in Panfilovska when he returns in the evening from a long day out in the Kyrgyz villages and the boarding-schools there. "The children were hugged when they arrived and they really like it there. The whole team in the boarding-school really does its best to make them feel comfortable. The institution is poor, but they make the best of it and the atmosphere is really special", David tells the others in the evening.

Time to load some of the materials from today onto the laptops and start some editing. Tomorrow is another day with more films to shoot...

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan - Chris Schuepp - April 29, 2009