Since 2016 Caritas Tajikistan (CT) is supporting a network of local public associations uniting people with disabilities in Khatlon province. The project aims to empower this group by promoting income generation through zero-interest micro-credits for disabled people. It is a big problem for people with disabilities to have access to the bank services here. The concern of banks is the risk of payback failure from this category of customers. Therefore the project has special popularity among members of the public associations.
Every year the project organizes an annual meeting of these partner organizations, where annual reports of the organizations are heard and common issues and advances are discussed. One of the notable issues brought by and discussed by the group was the good advancement of the greenhouse business among disabled people in the countryside due to the high profitability of the business when using high-quality seed material.
This year, with consideration of the CI “Together WE” campaign Caritas brought to the discussion of environmental issues and how can we do this project promote environmental care activities at the level of each individual and society. It was noted that the engagement of more disabled people in farming with the use of organics in the farming using eco-friendly ways of treating plants with ecologically based biological fertilizers (from animal and plant wastes) is a noteworthy contribution of the group to the environment care. In the conditions when the cost of chemical fertilizers goes up it is also a way to save.
As a related topic, Caritas also brought the idea of recycling as another way to take care of our environment. In particular, reusing plastics can be a potentially beneficial activity for many urban members of the groups. It was said about new ideas how with minimum means individuals can reuse some popular plastics (like PET) for manufacturing any type of goods and sell them in the local market, for instance, brushes, baskets, decorative elements, etc.. There was a practical demonstration of it.
Caritas Tajikistan is considering the group as a potential candidate for the creation of “communities of care” to implement new actions and initiatives that protect nature, in the spirit of integral ecology.
