This summer, a three-phase awareness campaign and blogging contest involved dozens of citizens in the fight against corruption in Azerbaijan. Initiated by IATP with the help of Transparency International (TI) Azerbaijan, the campaign educated participants on recognizing, resisting, and reducing one of their society’s most crippling problems.
The series began with a forum entitled "Corruption: What Do We Need to Change Society?". Host and expert from TI Yusif Abbasov answered questions from the 32 participants about the causes of corruption and the conditions that enable it.
Sixteen participants took action against corruption by creating blogs on the subject and starting a conversation about ways to combat it. On the eve of the contest, IATP administrators had organized special training sessions on blogs to increase the number of contest participants. Two participants from Sumgayit Javid Mammadov and Aida Sultanova took first and second place, and Arzu Yusifova from Imishli won third (http://korrupsiya.blog.ru). The winners were selected based on objective criteria and awarded a Web camera and headphones, and were given informational materials from TI on corruption, human rights, and Azerbaijan’s constitution. Following the contest, the participants discussed their blogs with a blog expert during an online forum.
Aida Sultanova emphasized, "The blog contest helped me understand how important it is to know your rights in order to fight corruption and support people who are involved in the anticorruption process." Arzu Yusifova thanked IATP, "Thanks to the blog contest organizers, we now know more about blogs and corruption problems in Azerbaijan." Over 50 blogs have been created by IATP users in Azerbaijan in the past year.
