Ouzbékistan

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Progress School offers ray of hope in parched Uzbekistan

© UNICEF

Hope: gymnasts at The Progress School

Amidst the lethal salt and polluted eddies of the Aral Sea region, UNICEF helps to maintain an extraordinary school: It is a tale of Hope dancing in the face of Despair.

Rudy Rodrigues, the head of UNICEF's operations in Uzbekistan, is emphatic. "The Aral Sea is gone, and it's not coming back. End of story. But this is home to these people and they want to stay. And what the Progress School provides is a spark of hope in all this misery. Hope for a better future. And for these kids, the choice is a stark one: Hope, or despair." If one wants to see the epitome of despair, come to the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan, where for 60 years the U.S.S.R's central planners re-drafted nature's grand design. They began by establishing a flawed irrigation system to drain the two great "feed" rivers of the Aral Sea in order to cultivate water-intensive crops like cotton and rice on thinly-soiled grasslands. They forcibly shifted large populations to work the fields. As the land slowly drowned, and the shallow water-table rose, the fresh water tables became salty, the nutrients of the soil flushed away, the water-starved Aral Sea and it's abundant fish life shrivelled, and the productivity of the fields slowed.

The planners compensated by reclaiming even less suitable peripheral land, pouring greater quantities of water on these lands, moving even more people to the farm the periphery, and by establishing an "agri-culture" of excessive fertilizing and pesticide spraying. They transformed a balanced pastoral and fishing paradise into an ecological disaster. Then the political system collapsed, and the people weren't even left with the fundamental health, social security, and education systems that had helped to blunt the pain of existence in this denuded land of illnesses.

Now the 3.5 million people of this region live with extraordinary rates of child mortality, illness amongst women of child-bearing age, maternal mortality, anaemia, typhoid, respiratory and intestinal infections, cancer, hepatitis, and diminished life-expectancy. Drinking water is contaminated to unfit levels (mainly salt and hardness). There are high levels of unemployment, alcoholism and drug-use, and barely functioning health, education, and social security systems. The average salary is six dollars per month. And now there is water shortage and crop-failure on a potentially catastrophic scale, because critical snow and rain falls have failed to replenish the rivers and have exposed the painful fragility of the whole system. People face the prospect of hunger at least, and possible famine.

But then there is Hope, in an extraordinary place, driven by an extraordinary woman, in an extraordinary part of the world. Lily Lagazidze is the founder and director of the Progress School, which occupies the formerly shabby Palace of Children in Nukus, the regional capital of Karakalpakstan. It began in 1991 as an English-language school in the least-loved remote province of a newly-formed country. It is now an "innovative educational youth centre" according to its mission statement - language school, business centre, pre-school, sports club, and UNICEF-backed safe house for teenagers from impoverished households.

© UNICEF

Lily Lagazidze: "The most precious thing is the spirit"

"The region is decaying," says UNICEF's Rodrigues, "and you can't deny it. But you also can't deny the power of what's happening here. It's a paradox that we must support, for the sake of the children and the future of this country." We are watching the school's gymnastic team spin across a field of Turkmen carpets in the school's vast covered quadrangle. The team, like the school, has achieved national recognition in this nation of 24 million people. Government ministers press to have their children accepted by the school's merit-based selection process. Children are taught in classes of 10-15 pupils, in irregularly arranged seating (unusual in any former Soviet-bloc school). Graduates of the business school have consistently achieved full employment in leading multinational corporations. The language-school graduates are winning places in all the best former Soviet universities. "You can't deny success," says Lily.

To visit is a dizzying experience. The dynamism and enthusiasm of the students and teachers is etched on every face, wall, book, curtain, and pin-board. The school is a labour of love. Walls are decorated by artisans and parents who contribute their time for free or at reduced cost, and classic Uzbekistan mosaic designs adorn the foyer. The toilets and leisure spaces are spotlessly maintained. A community drama amphitheatre is being built in a courtyard, and senior students devote a portion of their time to outreach teaching programmes for the poor and handicapped in neighbourhoods and villages.

© UNICEF

The way it was: A child's drawing of the Aral Sea from the Progress School

Under a UNICEF scholarship programme, an additional 60 underprivileged children have begun language tuition this term. "The most precious thing is the spirit," says Lily. "These children were forgotten. As people fought to save the Aral Sea with conferences, seminars, and grand statements, they forgot that people were living here. Now we are teaching these children not only what they need for survival, but that they can do anything, that against all this ugliness, the world can be beautiful. And in the process, we are all learning and changing."

Lilly is effusive about UNICEF's support for the school. "If it were not for UNICEF, I don't think we would have survived. The money was important, but the guidance and moral support was the most important." The Progress School has a "UNICEF Room" that is not just a showpiece for a donor, but is self-evidently actively used, with computers and resource materials on the Convention on the Rights of the Child. "Through UNICEF, the school and the children are connected with the world," says Lilly.

Rachael Dornhelm came to Nukus from the University of New York two years ago to complete a PhD on the effects of ecological disaster on culture. "I just stayed here to work in the school. It's so inspiring. This was a society in which everyone had to conform. You read the essays of children who enter this school for the first time, and then read their essays a few months later. The change in the way they see the world is amazing." The gymnasts dance across the floor, a flurry of bright colours, energy, and burning eyes. "Today they are the centre of Nukus, tomorrow the centre of the world. But I had to refuse admission to over 1000 children this term." After nine years, tears still fill Lily's eyes. Hope for the dancers, a little more despair for others, but at the Progress School, the dance continues, while the salt and pesticide eddies spin in the nearby fields.