“Open the Door and the Heart to the Child!

OSH, 24 May 2018 - The Mayor’s office of the city of Osh in cooperation with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) conduct a raising awareness campaign “Open the Door and the Heart to the Child!” about children with disabilities and the importance of their inclusion into the society life.

Around 30 bus stops, city lights and billboards are decorated with banners, which appeal to open doors and hearts to children. Video-stories about children with disabilities, their successes and talents will be aired on local TV in Osh and Osh oblast (region). Moreover, there are leaflets that being distributed among parents in every municipal kindergarten, which explain in an easy way how to communicate and to play with children with disabilities without excluding them from the society. Psychology and sociology students from Osh State University will conduct lessons in kindergartens about how to be friends with other children including children with disabilities.

«The Mayor’s office of the city of Osh pay great attention to support, development and integration of children with special needs into the society. Recently the Mayor’s office has done a lot in the sphere of early interventions and inclusion. We believe, that with financial and technical support from UNICEF, we would be able to make lives of our children full and harmonious”, said Nurbek Kadyrov, Vice Mayor of the city of Osh.

The main goal of the campaign is to raise awareness about the necessity of inclusion of children with disabilities into the society. Among more than 29 thousand children with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan, 956 live in the city of Osh. They are the most vulnerable group of children. Every day they face stigma and often do not leave their houses. Being afraid of discrimination and estrangement, children do not have an opportunity to become full members of the society, which limit their possibilities for the development.

“We are thankful to Mayor’s office of the city of Osh for the fruitful partnership with UNICEF in the interests of children. We hope that thank to this new mutual initiative, more people from Osh will open their hearts to children with disabilities in order to surround them with love and care and support their development as the members of the society”, said Yukie Mokuo, UNICEF Representative in Kyrgyzstan. “Moreover, it is important to enlarge the practice of early detection of deviations in children, to help a child and parents”, added Yukie Mokuo.