Attachments
This report covers the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014.
Overview
In the year 2014, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) supported the Uzbekistan Red Crescent Society to strengthen the specific Red Cross and Red Crescent contribution to development through a migration project. In order to grow Red Cross Red Crescent services for vulnerable people, the IFRC Secretariat also supported the Uzbekistan Red Crescent’s disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities.
Uzbekistan is primarily affected by migration as a country of origin, and its labour migrants frequently face vulnerabilities in the destination countries such as discrimination against them as ethnic and religious minorities, the issue of language difficulties and the risk of abuse and exploitation. The National Society’s migration project is part of the regional project on “Empowering Central Asian migrants and returnees to improve living and protect dignity” that reaches out to migrants, potential migrants and their families through information and education centres within the framework of the Central Asian Red Crescent Labour Migration Network.
Over 2014, the Uzbekistan Red Crescent Societys four information and education centres for migrants in Tashkent, Fergana, Karshi and Termez continued providing serviced to potential migrants as well as to the migrants families and returnees. The services included the dissemination of information about the rights and duties in the transit or destination countries, disease prevention, addressing social issues, and Russian language and computer literacy courses. In total, 4,677 people were reached by the National Society in the centres or through community outreach activities. In order to support information dissemination, the Uzbekistan Red Crescent developed and printed information materials on prevention of sexually transmitted infections, intestinal infections and tuberculosis, risks of exploitation and trafficking in human beings and promotion materials with information about the Red Crescent Societies` services and addresses of the centres.
The disease prevention and social protection activities for beneficiaries have been implemented by the Red Crescent with substantial support from local authorities and community leaders, which is an evidence of the National Society playing an effective auxiliary role in the humanitarian sphere and using a participatory approach.
In the second half of the year, the Uzbekistan Red Crescent became one of the implementing partners of the regional project entitled “Building Sustainable Community Resilience through Strengthening Disaster Risk Reduction Systems in Central Asia” within the DIPECO-VIII programme. The project is managed, coordinated and supervised by the German Red Cross, supported by the IFRC Secretariat and the Austrian Red Cross and implemented by the Red Crescent Societies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The action aims at contributing to increased resilience of communities and capacities of institutions through comprehensive and sustainable disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures at different levels in Central Asia by enhancing the quality, sustainability and inter-connectedness of DRR activities over 18 months. By the end of the year, the Uzbekistan Red Crescent worked to establish eight Local Disaster Management Committees (LDMC) in target communities and schools in Namangan and Andijan province administrative centres.