KULOB, April 6, 2015, Asia-Plus — Mission East has closed its field office in Kulob.
Mission East’s operations in Tajikistan has resulted in opening of 4 rehabilitation centers for children with disabilities (two in Kulob, one in Khovaling and one in Panjakent), ten similar mini centers (special corner for children with disabilities) in Shouroobod and Muminobod districts and opening of the Department for Preschool Education and Social Work at the Kulob State University.
Meanwhile, Mission East will continue its operations in the Darvoz district of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (promoting water, sanitation and hygiene and disaster management in at-risk border communities of Afghanistan and Tajikistan) and in the Panjakent district of the Sughd province (human rights in Tajikistan – opportunities for marginalized girls and women and children with disabilities).
Founded in 1991, Mission East is a Danish relief and development NGO that works with emergency relief aid, rehabilitation and development in Afghanistan, Armenia, Burma, Iraq, Nepal, North Korea, Romania, Syria and Tajikistan.
Mission East works with a broad variety of developmental issues, including assistance to improve clean water supply, health and hygiene awareness, household agriculture, the building of access roads to isolated areas, people with disability, infrastructure, and passing on skills to local people.
Specific projects include a beekeeping cooperative in Afghanistan, a clubroom project in Armenia for children with and without disability, livelihood support of children in Nepal, livelihood projects in the Roma community in Romania and small-scale agriculture projects in Tajikistan. Mission East also works with an array of partner organizations.
In Tajikistan, Mission East has worked since 1997 and its strategy here focused on improving livelihoods for vulnerable households and communities, with a particular emphasis on community mobilization and community management of the solutions to the problems they face. Mission East’s some projects focused on the strengthening of civil society structures – both local organizations as well as grassroots initiatives like women’s groups or groups of parents of children with disabilities, to ensure self-management and sustainability.
Mission East has undertaken a variety of initiatives to help communities address poverty issues in a holistic and integrated way. As a few examples, these activities have included: support to small-scale agriculture, establishment of farmers” cooperatives, enabling new income generation opportunities, construction of clean water systems, promotion of hygiene behavior change, improving household energy efficiency and use of alternative energy sources.
