Offering Refuge, Health, and Healing to Uzbek IDPs in Kyrgyzstan

In late June, CitiHope was tasked to lead the USAID reponse to the ethnic-based crisis rocking southern Kyrgyzstan. There are estimates of over 300,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees from Osh, Jalalabad, and surrounding regions, the majority of whom are ethnic Uzbek. Since early July, CitiHope's Bishkek Office has been coordinating rapid needs assessments and developing a 6-month work plan to provide essential medicines and medical supplies, secure clean water and sanitation, offer individual and community psychological counseling for trauma and PTSD, and provide mother-child reproductive health services. Many IDPs have moved from rural 'camps' into urban centers like Osh City, where CitiHope will deploy medical staff, mental health professionals, philologists, and trainers to reach the thousands of IDPs unable to return home.                                                                                                                     

To donate to this urgent post-conflict effort, and to read more about CitiHope's 18 years in Kyrgyzstan, click here.         

(Image courtesy AFP/Oxana Onipko)                                                                                                  

Closing the Hunger Gap - 100,000 Meals at a Time

There's a name for these children: 'Ninos Buzos' - Scuba Kids. Scrounging around in trash heaps for food, rooting through dumpsters for scraps of clothing, these children belong to the poorest of the poor communities in Dominican Republic. For many, their best hope is to find enough food to make it to the next day.

Dominican Republic faces a serious wealth gap between upper and lower classes, and many impoverished urban neighborhoods and rural villages in DR are filled with Haitian families - immigrants and refugees still in desperate conditions after the massive earthquake in January 2010. Throughout the summer, CitiHope staff in Dominican Republic and Haiti have brought 115,000 meals to local orphanages, foster homes, and village-rebuilding projects to promote health and provide nutritional development.  Read the current report here.

Special thanks to our partners in this project, Stop Hunger Now and Fundacion RICA.

Read more about CitiHope's fight against malnutrition in Haiti and Dominican Republic.

A Vision for Africa: CitiHope Joins with the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation  

to Promote Health and Prevent Disease Around the   Continent 

This year, CitiHope is working with the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation to provide access to essential pharmaceuticals and medical supplies in public and community hospitals across Africa. CitiHope is working with Ministries of Health in Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Zimbabwe, as well as with high-level partnership with the First Lady Suzanne Mubarak of Egypt's cancer institute and Princess Lalla Salma of Morocco's Association Against Cancer. Read Coca-Cola's feature on CitiHope here.

Stay tuned for more information as our African country pages are developed!

CitiHope Honors Child Day by Rebuilding

Emergency Child Ward in Bishkek

May 27th, 2010 - Prominent Kyrgyz and U.S. government officials joined CitiHope staff in Bishkek to celebrate the reconstruction of the Emergency Ward in the Bishkek City Child Clinical Hospital. The Opening Ceremony was attended by U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Tatiana Gfoeller, Acting Mayor of Bishkek Isa Omurkulov, the Acting Minister and Deputy Ministers of Health, the Bishkek Child Hospital Chief Physician, and several more U.S. and Kyrgyz government staff. Also joining the event were CitiHope's sponsors and partners in the reconstruction project - AUB Charity Foundation, Kumtor Operating Company, ADRA, Counterpart International, and members of the media.

The Emergency Ward is one the most important units in a children’s hospital, and each year the Bishkek Child Hospital delivers intensive health care for more than 1,000 children aged 2 months to 16 years who are hospitalized for trauma and life-threatening disease. The Emergency Ward has not received repair or reconstruction work since the Hospital’s construction in 1964. During the last three months, a new power supply system, sanitary equipment, ventilation systems, and modern windows were installed in the unit.

Reconstruction work was conducted by CitiHope as a Small Reconstruction Project program financed by the U.S. Department of State humanitarian initiative, "Operation Provide Hope". This initiative supports programs that promote health, provide social support and improve quality of life for rural and uderserved populations.

The Emergency Ward will now provide intensive health care delivery that meets sanitary and full hygiene criteria, as well as a faster recovery and rehabilitation period among severely sick children. CitiHope staff can think of no better way to celebrate Child Day on June 1st.       

Above: US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Tatiana Gfoeller, Acting Mayor Isa Omurkulov, and Acting Minister of Health Damira Niyazalieva cut the ribbon to open the facilities.

Below: A broken water closet in the old ward (left); a nurse walks the halls of the new ward (center); a nurse cares for one of the first Kyrgyz children to benefit from the ward's new facility (right).