IATP News

Woman with Disabilities from Tajikistan Uses ICT to Improve Her Life

A woman suffering from paraplegia Sitora Kurbanova credits staff from IATP’s Independent Internet Center (IIC) in Kanibadam, Tajikistan, for teaching her the ICT skills that brought positive change to her life. Kurbanova is one of thousands of disabled citizens in Eurasia who have grown personally and professionally thanks to information communication technology. Once lacking a career in Kandibadam, where economic conditions are poor, Kurbanova now leads a more fulfilling life today in Russia, working as an internet-based sales manager, teaching the children of Tajik migrant workers to use computers, and supporting her extended family in Tajikistan.

In November 2003, Kurbanova completed IATP’s step-by-step training, and a few months later, developed her own website, as well as a resource on the 80th anniversary of Dushanbe. Her ICT skills brought Kurbanova to the People’s Democratic Party of Tajikistan, where she landed a job as an administrative secretary in June 2004.

While a student at the Kanibadam Pedagogical College, Kurbanova applied for Russian distance learning courses. In January 2006, she was admitted to the psychology department of an accredited Russian online institute. Upon graduation from the institute, Kurbanova worked as a trainer at the NGO Civil Bridges – IATP’s partner in Kandibadam – and taught computer literacy to children with physical and mental disabilities.

Now Sitora Kurbanova and her family live in St. Petersburg, Russia, for half of the year, where she found a position as a sales manager at an engineering company. Kurbanova also makes a living by teaching computer literacy to children of Tajik labor migrants using her home computer. Kurbanova recently contacted IATP staff to report on her transition to Russia, “I am very thankful to the NGO Civil Bridges and to IATP, which provided me with the opportunity to learn information technologies. Without ICT skills, it would have been difficult for me to achieve anything in my life.”

Disabled Journalists, Veterans Improve Productivity, Communication

Members of disabled communities from Moldova, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan are able to work, communicate, and become more socially integrated as a result of IATP events. In Moldova, a former beneficiary of IATP training is utilizing her skills to assist the disabled.

• After completing an IATP workshop in January, Maria Mescina of Chisinau, Moldova began training disabled children and adults who are members of the NGO Motivatia (Motivation). Motivatia was created in 2007 to unite people with physical disabilities, help them protect their rights, and provide them with legal and educational support. After learning about Motivatia through her employment at the national printing house, Mescina joined the organization as a volunteer, conducting a seminar in computer skills for 15 physically impaired children and adults from January 28 to February 2. Mescina commented, "My heart is filled with pleasure when I see how much they can accomplish after this course.” She continued, “This is a chance for them to change their lives. It helps them to overcome their illness and make others regard them as healthy people.” By bringing knowledge of information technology to the disabled Mescina is contributing to their personal growth and self-esteem and to greater social integration of the disabled in Moldova.
• Galina Ponomaryova, a blind journalist from Donetsk, Ukraine, is now more efficient and faster in writing articles for regional newspapers after attending IATP courses for visually impaired people in January. Using an old typewriter, in the past Ponomaryova had serious problems with meeting submission deadlines. “I couldn’t even imagine that one day I will find needed information via Internet, using new information technologies,” remarked Ponomaryova.
• Ten disabled veterans of the Voluntary Society of Veterans of War in Afghanistan are using their newly acquired skills to build and serve their community in Almaty, Kazakhstan following a series of IATP computer and Internet courses from February 4 to 16. “Our improved IT skills help to fulfill our mission for disabled people. Now we can interact between each other using email,” commented Sergey Turumkulovich Mahashev, head of the association. He added, “Using Internet resources, we manage to coordinate our work better and find useful information for our activities.”

Visually Impaired Journalist Gives Disabled Young People the Skills to Succeed

In November 2008, radio journalist from Zhytomyr, Ukraine Sergiy Cherevko began conducting ICT skills training for five visually impaired IATP users.  After participating in IATP’s Sense Online project in 2007, Cherevko, himself visually impaired, was impressed by the opportunities ICT offers to blind and disabled individuals.  When IATP’s trainer moved to another city, Cherevko decided to apply his knowledge and new skills to lead the project himself.

Through his own IATP training, Cherevko learned about specially designed voice tools that facilitate the social and professional integration of visually impaired people, such as the Job Access with Speech (JAWS) voice-activated interface and the MaxReader audio library.  Cherevko commented, “These programs helped not only in my life, but also with my profession.  I can edit and compile my radio interviews and news briefs more efficiently.”

One of Cherevko’s trainees, student Viktoriya Matviyenko, has successfully passed her winter session exams at Zhytomyr State University's Mathematics Department using her ICT skills.  Cherevko commented, “I am pleased to know that my trainees can work with computers and the internet.  They can create files and work with them, they can use the internet to search for books and other information, and they work with e-mail and make virtual friends.  I realize that everyday, the visually impaired are better able to integrate into Ukraine's civil society and my efforts are rewarded.” 

Sense Online (http://sense.iatp.net) is an IATP initiative designed to equip visually impaired Ukrainians with technology skills to help them secure a brighter future.  The specialized software with a synthesized voice allows blind users to employ their touch-sensory skills to increase their productivity and professional capacities.  This project is carried out in collaboration with the Ukrainian Association of Blind People (UTOS).  Sense Online encourages visually impaired people to take advantage of ICT in developing as professionals and protecting their rights.  Over 20 Ukrainians with visual impairments have learned ICT skills in the last year though the project.  The Sense Online project equipment and resources will remain at the Independent Internet Centers (IICs) of Ukraine to ensure that visually impaired individuals have access to ICT resources after IATP sponsorship ends.

Disabled Community Uses ICT Skills to Secure Employment and Meet their Social Needs

Thanks in part to IATP technical training, disabled citizens from Turkmenabat, Turkmenistan, are becoming entrepreneurs empowered to obtain the assistance they need. In recent months, Samuil Lavskiy, a leader of the disabled community in Turkmenabat, cooperated with local entrepreneurs to open several businesses. These enterprises have had a positive impact on the local community and are currently employing 18 people with disabilities.

In September 2008, a group headed by Lavskiy opened its second business Sungat Studio which provides services, such as CD copying and audio-video material processing, and sells music and film products. Before developing the proposal for Sungat Studio, Lavskiy and his partners surveyed Turkmenabat citizens, assessing the city’s demand for such services. Utilizing IATP resources, the group conducted online research, developed a survey questionnaire, and produced job application forms. Four disabled Turkmenabat residents are now employed at Sungat.

In late 2007, Lavskiy and his coworkers started to develop their community service projects under the USAID-funded Local Development Initiatives Grant Program administered by Counterpart International. Receiving grants for $5,500 and $1,125, they first launched the FAN Service Center, which provides tailoring, laundering, and salon services in the city. As a result of the new business, 14 formerly unemployed disabled citizens are making dresses, repairing shoes, maintaining facilities, and styling hair. Lavskiy, who is afflicted with cerebral paralysis, is one of 12 disabled citizens who completed IATP courses in basic computing, internet use, graphic editing, and Web design over the last two years. Through specialized seminars jointly organized by IATP and the Hemayat Economics Association, these individuals also learned about business planning, management, and relevant legal issues.

To date, income from Sungat Studio and FAN Service Center has allowed Lavskiy to purchase ten walking sticks for people with cerebral paralysis. According to the project’s business plans, Lavskiy plans to spend part of the business’ profits on similar charitable endeavors for his disabled peers in Turkmenabat.

Information Technologies Empower Disabled Community in Turkmenistan

Two blind trainers of IATP’s Sense Online Turkmenistan project completed a TOT course for ten of their blind peers from the Turkmen Society for the Blind and Deaf (TSBD) in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on July 9. The TOT aspect of Sense Online was designed by IATP and implemented by TSBD to prepare mobile trainers to provide sustainable ICT opportunities for many more blind Turkmen.

In October, Timur Mamedov and Kerim Aydogdyev, in collaboration with IATP mobile trainer Tatyana Novruzova (CI 02) created a proposal for the project and applied to the ECA Alumni Small Grants Program at the US Embassy in Turkmenistan. As a result of the $1000 grant they received from the US Embassy, Timur and Kerim were employed to prepare electronic and Braille print versions of the IT manuals in the spring. From July 1 to 9, they lead TOT training for 10 visually impaired members of TSBD in Ashgabat. Kerim Aydogdyev, visually impaired trainer remarked, “it is a great opportunity for me to participate in a project which creates professional skills and potential. I am proud to be part of our effort to create this unique manual on IT use which will be used by all TSBD members in Turkmenistan”.

TSBD intends to expand the project to reach participants from all regions of Turkmenistan, continuing the project as a sustainable activity, and will submit grant applications in July to expand their ICT penetration based on the IATP training model. Computer and communication technologies present tremendous opportunities as an interface between the blind and the sighted, which facilitate integration, self-sufficiency, and active participation in public life.

Disadvantaged Citizens Utilize Technology to Improve their Communities

Fuad Kazimov, a citizen of Baku, Azerbaijan with a physical disability, utilized the Web design skills he learned at IATP courses to create a website for a local center for individuals with disabilities. The website for the Lotos center (http://kidsandneeds.info) is a virtual network for children with special needs, where the disabled can seek legal assistance and psychological counseling, and obtain information about Lotos and similar organizations that serve the disabled. By end of May, Kazimov added both Azeri and Russian language content to the website and began to develop an English version. Additionally, he updated the section on news on people with disabilities, and added new links and flash animation. Kazimov commented, "Approximately 300,000-350,000 people with various forms of physical and mental disabilities live in Azerbaijan – 43,000 of which are children. I would like to make changes in my community and help people understand that disabled children should not be separated from the community where they live.”

Thirteen orphaned girls from Chisinau, Moldova, completed Web design courses and created personal websites in May as part of the Tech Age Girls (TAG) project. Since March, the young women have progressed from having almost no computer knowledge to the point of being skilled Web designers. TAG is a project designed to equip Moldovan girls from disadvantaged families with technology skills to help them secure a brighter future. By learning information technology skills, TAG participants create opportunities for further personal and professional development. Additionally, their online presence helps them establish new contacts and exchange information with others. The websites they create also contribute to the growth of websites generated in Moldova and of interest to Moldovans. Participants in the project are identified by local social services institutions and recruited for training by IATP.

As a result of their training, the young women learned the basics of Web design, including HTML, website structure, and visual website editors. By end of May, seven new websites and six wikis – collections of Web pages where multiple users can easily add or modify content – were posted to the IATP server by TAG participants. Alina Gorbaceova dedicated her personal wiki to her family, friends, and hobbies (mediawiki.iatp.net) remarked, "A link to my website is the best present I can give to my relatives and friends." Other participants’ websites cover topics, such as medicine (http://lumea-medicinii.md.iatp.net/index.html), astronomy (planeta-mars.md.iatp.net/), happiness (mediawiki.iatp.net), and friendship (mediawiki.iatp.net).

Disabled and Blind Citizens Benefit from Professional ICT Skills

Throughout Eurasia, IATP aims to bring the benefits of new technologies to the disabled and sensory impaired. Emerging technologies provide new opportunities for these citizens, rather than leaving them behind. Following are some of the successes of these participants:

Oraz Tachmuhammedov, a visually impaired employee of Turkmen Society for the Blind and Deaf (TSBD) and a participant of the IATP Sense Online—Turkmenistan initiative, has markedly improved the output of the TSBD Musical Studio since completing IATP training. As musical editor, Oraz was responsible for creating musical programs, playing the synthesizer during TSBD events, and updating the electronic library of musical compositions recorded at the studio. During the IATP computer training for visually impaired trainees in March, Tachmuhammedov mastered multimedia software skills and learned to record multimedia files to various digital devices. In the past, Tachmuhammedov conducted sound processing using outdated equipment, which required the assistance of a sighted person. Now he maintains the musical library electronically, and uses a computer to create musical programs for TSBD events without any assistance.

Lachin Yagshyeva, a formerly unemployed 24-year-old Turkmen woman with cerebral paralysis began offering private word processing services upon completing IATP’s computer productivity training. Yagshyeva mastered computer technolgy and fast typing skills using Solo Keyboard software during a series of ICT training courses for seven disabled citizens at the IATP center in Turkmanabat, Turkmenistan. Yagshyeva’s newly gained skills enabled her to offer private word processing services at home. On April 19, Yagshyeva successfully completed her first order, compiling a set of professional documents for a local entrepreneur who was applying to register his business. Yagshyeva also assists her clients with creating electronic versions of paper manuscripts, historical documents, and scientific publications. The young disabled woman is excited about the changes that ICT skills brought to her life as they have improved her quality of life, and integrated her into her community.

Gunay Omerova, handicapped at birth and from the village of Mashraf in Azerbaijan’s Siyazan region, has found a job as a result of ICT training offered by IATP. Omerova learned to use Microsoft Office and Internet tools during a series of training provided at the request of the Chairperson of the Siyazan Organization for the Disabled Qaranfil Niftaliyeva and conducted in July 2007 at the IATP center in Baku. Since December, Omerova has been working as a secretary in a high school in Mashraf. As part of her duties, she also provides assistance and consultations on how to use Microsoft Office applications and the Internet to other school employees. Omerova remarked, "It was a big problem for me to get a job because I am disabled and didn’t have any professional skills. Now I am a member of a big collective and people need me. I earn my own salary and solve my financial problems, which was not possible before.”

IATP Partners with Civil Society Organizations to Improve Local Community Services

In April 2008 throughout Eurasia, IATP’s free IT courses and Internet enabled a wide variety of audiences throughout Eurasia to better carry out their functions. In Moldova, 30 finance officers underwent IATP training to improve the quality of their work and eight representatives from local administrations learned how to use specialized accounting software. Additionally, in Ukraine, a visually impaired IATP user developed a nine-month English language training course for 14 youth, and an architect successfully advocated for the preservation of historical sites using IT skills acquired through IATP training. Finally, representatives of a local NGO in Georgia raised over $8,000 in grants for a program to enhance disabled children’s education thanks to IATP training. By teaching ICT skills to local advocates and NGO officials, IATP is helping improve both the reach and the sustainability of the non-governmental sector across Eurasia. What follows is a detailed description of these IATP success stories:

Thirty finance officers of local administrations in four Moldovan districts of Volovita, Soroca, Sculeni, and Peresecina improved the quality and efficiency of their work due to newly obtained skills as a result of a training series co-sponsored by the IATP center in Chisinau and the NGO Center for Assistance to Public Authorities (CAAP). CAAP is a non-governmental think tank established in 2002 with the aim to help create a favorable environment for social and economic development in Moldova. In early February, CAAP Regional Coordinator Stella Jemna conducted training-of-trainers at the IATP Center in Chisinau to teach eight representatives of local administrations how to use a specialized accounting software product called "1C Book-Keeping." In April, four of these newly qualified trainers instructed their colleagues in applying this software to their daily work. Financial officers immediately began using the program, which helped them automatically record and process all financial transactions and increase the speed and accuracy of their work. Teaching government officials ICT skills allows them to provide greater services to their constituents and streamlines inefficient bureaucracy.

Fourteen young people will learn English during a nine-month special course for visually impaired people developed by active IATP user Larysa Sayevych in Donetsk, Ukraine. The President of the English Speaking Club and visually impaired herself, Sayevych managed to win a grant of $20,000 from the World Bank for her new project aimed at facilitating employment for disabled individuals. Due to IATP training Larysa acquired the necessary skills to teach her students English using ICT. According to the project proposal she has three months to develop teaching methods and to select two groups of students, and then nine months for to train the students. Larysa commented, “I am very happy that I can help people like me find a better job and not feel deserted and worthless for the society”.

Georgian NGO Raises over $8,000 in Grants for Project Focusing on Disabled Children with IATP Assistance

The NGO “GEA” assists disabled children in Khasuri, Georgia, by training educators to meet the special needs of their students, renovating the kindergarten, and producing a video about the importance of inclusive education. All these activites were made possible due to grants – totalling over $8,000 – from local and international donors as a result of skills GEA staff acquired from IATP training. Throughout the fall, IATP trained GEA and other NGOs working with the disabled in computer and Internet skills. The training culminated in a week-long course, sponsored by the IATP center in Tbilisi in October 2007, where participants learned the fundamentals of fundraising and grant writing.

American fundraising expert Kathy Starostka guided training particiapants through the entire grant proposal writing process, including setting realistic goals, proper planning and budgeting, and engaging partners to ensure cost-sharing. After GEA representatives completed the course, they started working on an actual proposal for their newly founded NGO, which addresses the problems of the disabled.

GEA searched the Web for grant opportunities throughout October at the IATP center in Tbilisi. As a result of their work, their project “Development of Inclusive Education for Khashuri Kindergarten # 7” received $4,358 from the Open Society Georgia Foundation and $3,320 from the Kashuri Municipality government.

Kindergarden #7 in Kashuri is slated to become the only inclusive public school in Georgia for children in grades below the first grade. Due to GEA’s efforts, 12 disabled children have already been integrated into the general class. To further its mission, GEA researched additional funders at the local IATP center, submitted grant applications, and won a $1,000 grant from the Rotary Foundation. With the money from the new grant and technical support from IATP, GEA is currently creating a public service announcement (PSA) about the importance of inclusive education. This PSA will be shown on Georgian Public Broadcasting starting June1 – International Children’s Day.

“If it were not for IATP’s effort of organizing the grant writing training, we probably would never be able to receive these grants. We simply could not afford to pay a professional to complete the grant proposals for us. But with the help of Kathy Starostka and IATP we wrote the proposals ourselves and we succeeded,” stated the President of GEA Khatuna Ghavtadze.

Visually Impaired People in Turkmenistan Communicate in Online Forum

As a part of Sense Online Turkmenistan, an IATP initiative in collaboration with the Turkmen Society for the Blind and Deaf designed to teach communication and technology skills to blind students and help them secure a brighter future, members of the disabled community have been discussing the role of computer and information technologies in their life in an online forum since February 11. Three of the forum participants attended IATP word processing and Internet training in February 2007 in Ashgabat and Balkanabat, Turkmenistan.

During the forum, Vadim Afonin presented original poetry dedicated to the IATP project which expresses the role of technology skills in his own life. Afonin wrote, “When there is an idea, it’s time to launch a project. And in order for it to be a success we’ll use Internet again.” Visually impaired participant Orazov Tachmuhammet commented on the forum, “It is a first unique opportunity for me to keep in touch with people from other cities and places through the Internet and to share my thoughts with them and know I’m not alone.”

Prior to the end of the forum on April 30, Turkmen participants will be introduced to their visually impaired peers in Belarus by IATP Mobile Trainer Jennet Nazarova and will discuss how new technologies can create new social networks.