World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

WFP’s food-for-assets activities brought jobs and revived hope for about a hundred people in the isolated village of Min-Kush. The village is nestled in the mountains in the remote province of Naryn, Kyrgyzstan’s poorest region.

WFP seasonal assistance to the poorest rural communities across the country helps many families cope with the consequences of the harsh winter they had been through. The family of thirty-year old Burulbu Moldomusaeva is among those families who have been worst-hit by the cold season and has benefited from WFP food assistance.

In Nooruz, a New Year’s Day for Kyrgyzstan, Ainura Jumagulova, who lives in a remote Issyk-Kul village of Kyzyl-Suu, will work hard to make her festive food somewhat different from her usual bread and tea.

In Mashrap Sai, a small village in southern Kyrgyzstan, reconstructing a bridge connecting its residents to the neighbouring village has positively influenced both trade and education.  Daniyar Saryev, a father of five school-aged children, was able to safely send his children to school and also make a living.

Bolot Urbaev is a father of 10 from a small village named Toguz-Bulak. His village is in a swampy isolated corner of Issyk-Kul, which has been neglected by local authorities and relief organizations for years. Every spring Urbaev and over 2,000 other villagers nervously monitor ground water levels, which pose a constant threat to their homes and harvests.

Soaring prices are putting food out of reach for a growing section of the population in the Kyrgyz Republic in central Asia. Food staples like buckwheat and sorghum have tripled in price since June 2010. Women like Uirukan, a widowed mother of six, say they don’t know how they’ll get by if the prices don’t come down.

The air is crisp with the first winter’s frost as Gulsara describes the stomach-wrenching devastation she felt when discovering her home had been stripped bare. “They took absolutely everything, even the windows and the roof. Nothing was left,” Gulsara recalls as she stands in a queue to receive WFP food assistance outside a kindergarten in Osh.

The violence in Kyrgyzstan last month sparked an exodus of refugees into neighbouring Uzbekistan. But a smaller group of ethnic Kyrgyz fled in the opposite direction in fear of retaliation on the other side of the border. WFP is helping both communities cope in the aftermath.