Tajikistan: COVID-19 Appeal- Down syndrome
Donation protected
NAZARI DIGAR LTD is a registered charity in the UK (charity number 1189104). We are calling on the international community with our COVID-19 Appeal to save the children with Down syndrome and their families in Tajikistan. People with Down syndrome are at 'high risk' in Tajikistan. Infection could have devastating effects on their health, or worse - it could be fatal.
On April 30th, Tajikistan finally admitted that there are cases of COVID-19 in the country. As we can see around the world, even developed countries are not fully managing the crisis. Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in Central Asia, and therefore, the situation is alarming. Hospitals are full and turning people away at the door. People are dying from COVID-19, although there are no national statistics on this. There is limited testing capacity meaning statistics or tracing the virus is impossible. Although the government has not issued a shelter order, many people are staying at home.
Many families earn their living on a day-to-day basis, and are now going hungry, as they cannot work. There are families who have mortgages or small business loans, and now have no income, but still have to pay the loans. Those who are lucky to have some savings will be running out of money. At least 40% families in Tajikistan rely on remittances, sent by a family member working abroad. The majority of these migrants are in Russia and currently in dire situation themselves, without work, savings, or housing.
Due to the closure of boarders, price gauging and the impact on food supplies has resulted in an increase of food prices. For example, the price for a kilo of potatoes has doubled from 4 somoni to 8.
Schools have been put on temporary “breaks,” but no arrangements have been made for distance learning or any other educational activities. The majority of the population do not have the capacity to conduct distance learning. This has an immense impact not only on the education of the children, but also on their overall mental health and wellbeing.
Beneficiaries
Most people with Down syndrome are at 'high risk' of COVID-19 because many children might have one or more underlying conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), kidney disease, chronic respiratory problems, lung disease or a history of severe respiratory infections and sleep apnea. Children with Down syndrome in Tajikistan have lower immune system, which can result in increased difficulty in fighting the infection.
At the moment we know of the following number of families with children who have Down syndrome from the different regions of Tajikistan:
Sughd region - 139
Khatlon region- 24
GBAO- 30
Dushanbe- 50
The total number of families is 243, but please note that there are many more which during our campaign, will hear about our charity action and join the list.
We want to provide the families with the following over the next 3-4 months:
1) Food packages for one month (20 kg of flour, cooking oil 5 litres, pasta (3 packs), potatoes (10 kg), onion (10kg), carrots (5 kg), rice – 8 kg, sugar (2kg), eggs (30).
One meal pack for the family is 48 USD for the whole month.
2) It is important for children to maintain healthy diet and keep boosting their immune system, thus we would like to offer fruit bags on a weekly basis, which will include 4 bananas, 1 kg of apples or other seasonal fruits.
One pack of fruits will be 3,5 USD, and we want to deliver fruits once every two weeks.
3) To keep the immune system resistant to COVID-19, we intend to provide each child with vitamin C. It is hard to find at the moment in the pharmacies but we are negotiating with suppliers.
For one child: 0.30 cents for one month.
4) Water tanks in the rural villages. In the rural villages where there is no clean drinking water, we will provide water tanks once a day. We are negotiating with water companies at the moment and discussing the arrangements and expenses for this.
5) On the ground, our charity has had to cancel all the therapy sessions since April in order to protect the children from COVID-19. School holidays are now extended until the end of August in Tajikistan, and it might even go beyond. Thus, it is important to include the element of education into our campaign. We have developed educational materials on speech and language development, memory, and fine motor skills development. We are planning to print the guidance and toolkits for parents and educational visual materials for children; our children loved their art therapy classes and we want to try to continue art therapy classes online, and distribute art therapy packs among the children with paints, playdough etc.
Bank Arvand kindly agreed to print materials for children.
One pack will cost 5 USD per child.
For our educational component, we would like to develop short video lessons for children, which, with volunteer inputs will be one lesson a week for free.
We would like to provide families with Internet for the next 3 months; in this way they can have access to sessions online. The cost of Internet will be 2 USD per family for one month.
6) With each monthly delivery we will provide masks, disinfectants and soaps for the families. We have joined forces with one of the Tajikistan’s designers, and have started to sew masks for children with lovely patterns which will encourage kids to actually wear the masks. This will be done for free in coordination with other initiative groups.
7) On our social media platforms, we will promote good hygiene and a series on how to prevent COVID-19. We will put leaflets developed by UNICEF Tajikistan in each food package to raise awareness about prevention of COVID-19.
How we will do it
We will be working on the ground in Tajikistan with the Public Organisation (charity), Nazari Digar. Nazari Digar has created a network of organisations who work with children with Down syndrome across the country. We plan to support Nazari Digar to manage and coordinate the project in partnership with 15 NGOs and charities within this network.
In addition to the network, we plan to collaborate with civil society initiatives who can provide their volunteers and cars to deliver food door to door. We plan to collaborate with Hadyai Mehr, Operation CIZ in the North and the equivalent of these initiatives in other regions. We will collaborate with the Red Crescent Society in Tajikistan (they will help with volunteers and delivery) and UNICEF Tajikistan (with necessary leaflets on prevention and protection from COVID-19).
We will have a separate page on our website for this appeal, where we will post all the financial reports, and photo reports of food delivery and videos. https://nazaridigar.org
Please support our Appeal and spread the word. Every day, and every hour, is important during these difficult and challenging times in Tajikistan. Every penny counts! Together we can provide essential help, vital to the survival of many in Tajikistan. Together we can beat COVID-19.
A huge 'Rahmat' (Thank you) for all your support!
On April 30th, Tajikistan finally admitted that there are cases of COVID-19 in the country. As we can see around the world, even developed countries are not fully managing the crisis. Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in Central Asia, and therefore, the situation is alarming. Hospitals are full and turning people away at the door. People are dying from COVID-19, although there are no national statistics on this. There is limited testing capacity meaning statistics or tracing the virus is impossible. Although the government has not issued a shelter order, many people are staying at home.
Many families earn their living on a day-to-day basis, and are now going hungry, as they cannot work. There are families who have mortgages or small business loans, and now have no income, but still have to pay the loans. Those who are lucky to have some savings will be running out of money. At least 40% families in Tajikistan rely on remittances, sent by a family member working abroad. The majority of these migrants are in Russia and currently in dire situation themselves, without work, savings, or housing.
Due to the closure of boarders, price gauging and the impact on food supplies has resulted in an increase of food prices. For example, the price for a kilo of potatoes has doubled from 4 somoni to 8.
Schools have been put on temporary “breaks,” but no arrangements have been made for distance learning or any other educational activities. The majority of the population do not have the capacity to conduct distance learning. This has an immense impact not only on the education of the children, but also on their overall mental health and wellbeing.
Beneficiaries
Most people with Down syndrome are at 'high risk' of COVID-19 because many children might have one or more underlying conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), kidney disease, chronic respiratory problems, lung disease or a history of severe respiratory infections and sleep apnea. Children with Down syndrome in Tajikistan have lower immune system, which can result in increased difficulty in fighting the infection.
At the moment we know of the following number of families with children who have Down syndrome from the different regions of Tajikistan:
Sughd region - 139
Khatlon region- 24
GBAO- 30
Dushanbe- 50
The total number of families is 243, but please note that there are many more which during our campaign, will hear about our charity action and join the list.
We want to provide the families with the following over the next 3-4 months:
1) Food packages for one month (20 kg of flour, cooking oil 5 litres, pasta (3 packs), potatoes (10 kg), onion (10kg), carrots (5 kg), rice – 8 kg, sugar (2kg), eggs (30).
One meal pack for the family is 48 USD for the whole month.
2) It is important for children to maintain healthy diet and keep boosting their immune system, thus we would like to offer fruit bags on a weekly basis, which will include 4 bananas, 1 kg of apples or other seasonal fruits.
One pack of fruits will be 3,5 USD, and we want to deliver fruits once every two weeks.
3) To keep the immune system resistant to COVID-19, we intend to provide each child with vitamin C. It is hard to find at the moment in the pharmacies but we are negotiating with suppliers.
For one child: 0.30 cents for one month.
4) Water tanks in the rural villages. In the rural villages where there is no clean drinking water, we will provide water tanks once a day. We are negotiating with water companies at the moment and discussing the arrangements and expenses for this.
5) On the ground, our charity has had to cancel all the therapy sessions since April in order to protect the children from COVID-19. School holidays are now extended until the end of August in Tajikistan, and it might even go beyond. Thus, it is important to include the element of education into our campaign. We have developed educational materials on speech and language development, memory, and fine motor skills development. We are planning to print the guidance and toolkits for parents and educational visual materials for children; our children loved their art therapy classes and we want to try to continue art therapy classes online, and distribute art therapy packs among the children with paints, playdough etc.
Bank Arvand kindly agreed to print materials for children.
One pack will cost 5 USD per child.
For our educational component, we would like to develop short video lessons for children, which, with volunteer inputs will be one lesson a week for free.
We would like to provide families with Internet for the next 3 months; in this way they can have access to sessions online. The cost of Internet will be 2 USD per family for one month.
6) With each monthly delivery we will provide masks, disinfectants and soaps for the families. We have joined forces with one of the Tajikistan’s designers, and have started to sew masks for children with lovely patterns which will encourage kids to actually wear the masks. This will be done for free in coordination with other initiative groups.
7) On our social media platforms, we will promote good hygiene and a series on how to prevent COVID-19. We will put leaflets developed by UNICEF Tajikistan in each food package to raise awareness about prevention of COVID-19.
How we will do it
We will be working on the ground in Tajikistan with the Public Organisation (charity), Nazari Digar. Nazari Digar has created a network of organisations who work with children with Down syndrome across the country. We plan to support Nazari Digar to manage and coordinate the project in partnership with 15 NGOs and charities within this network.
In addition to the network, we plan to collaborate with civil society initiatives who can provide their volunteers and cars to deliver food door to door. We plan to collaborate with Hadyai Mehr, Operation CIZ in the North and the equivalent of these initiatives in other regions. We will collaborate with the Red Crescent Society in Tajikistan (they will help with volunteers and delivery) and UNICEF Tajikistan (with necessary leaflets on prevention and protection from COVID-19).
We will have a separate page on our website for this appeal, where we will post all the financial reports, and photo reports of food delivery and videos. https://nazaridigar.org
Please support our Appeal and spread the word. Every day, and every hour, is important during these difficult and challenging times in Tajikistan. Every penny counts! Together we can provide essential help, vital to the survival of many in Tajikistan. Together we can beat COVID-19.
A huge 'Rahmat' (Thank you) for all your support!
Fundraising team (4)
Tahmina Hakimova-Rees
Organizer
England
Habibakhon Yoqubova
Team member
Shavkat Mamadjonov
Team member
Adiba Sharipova
Team member
