Yesterday, the facility in Kakakol Kyrgyzstan had a successful opening ceremony for their inclusive playground, which your donations helped found. This playground enables the disabled to play alongside their healthy peers. During the rope cutting, children of all abilities lined up to run to their favorite piece of playground equipment. The carousel was particularly popular, which all the kids could be on at the same time. Even the ones in wheelchairs!
We are so grateful for your support, and are thrilled by the positive reviews we have received from our playgrounds. Children's facilities all over Kyrgyzstan are beginning to see the value of having an inclusive place to play, and this movement would not be taking place without your generous donation.
If you would like to continue to support our cause in Kyrgyzstan, please visit our current campaign to install a playground at the Children's Rehabilitation Center in Osh Kygryzstan, visited by over 3,000 children every year! With this many children visiting the center, the cost of equipment is less than a dollar per child! You can visit this campaign here:
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/playground-for-disabled-children-in-kyrgyzstan/
Just over half a year ago, with your generous help, we completed the playground at the ARDI Center in Bishkek. Before this playground, there was only a single swing that the children had to wait their turn in a long line to use. Now kids enjoy three swings, a slide, a car, walking and climbing bars, a sandbox and a see-saw. Akylek (pictured center in the yellow raincoat), an eight year old who has Down Syndrome, enjoys the slide in particular. When the time comes to go outside, he's one of the first to run to the slide and he can enjoy it all day. We are so excited about all the great feedback we are receiving about children like Akylek from both the Lenisoke and Bishkek playgrounds, and are so grateful to all who donated to make them possible. But we can't stop now!
We are moving our focus to the less developed southern region of Kyrgyzstan. We hope to build a playground at the Children's Rehabilitation Center in Osh City which is visited by over 3,000 disabled children every year who have nothing but a couple benches and a space of undeveloped land to play outside. If you would like to help us continue our mission to install playgrounds for disabled children throughout the region, please visit the Osh Playground project page at:
http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/playground-for-disabled-children-in-kyrgyzstan/
-Why playgrounds?
Thomas Jefferson stated, "Laws and Institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind". In order to change the way the Kyrgyz society treats disabled citizens, we must focus on "the human mind"; the way that people view children with disabilities. Disabled children are currently seen as a burden to society and a shame upon their family, but we hope that people will begin to see these children as beautiful and unique human beings who should have the same right to a prosperous life as anyone else.
At Kelechek, we feel that the best way to achieve this is by demonstrating to the Kyrgyz people that, just because a child is different, this does not mean that they can't become confident members of society. Our playgrounds bring disabled children together where they can interact and play just as normal children have for years. As parents watch their children gain the same social skills as children at other playgrounds, they will begin to appreciate the kids for who they are despite their disabilities. This has the potential to both improve these children's lifestyles, and encourage families to raise their disabled children rather that resorting to one of Kyrgyzstans orphanages.
Dear supporters and friends,
we would like to thank you for your patience as our parents in Child's Dream day centre (Leninskoe v.) have recently finished painting their slide, swings and bars (sandbox is drying up :). The playground for ARD (Bishkek c.) has been actively used and enjoyed by kids.
The balance 1,170 USD was donated towards playgrounds in Osh and Karakol cities.
Ornok day centre's team in Karakol had been very determined and they won a 6,000 USD (!) grant from the PeaceCorps in Kyrgyzstan. And now they are building the first accessible playground in the whole Issyk Kul region. We are excited and looking forward to seeing it finished this summer.
As for Osh c., several NGOs and our team got together to start a fundraising campaign for the largest rehabilitation centre in the South which is visited by about 3,000 children with disabilities and their parents a year. This will be a separate campaign we will hopefully launch on GlobalGiving in about two weeks.
So it should become the 5th accessible playground for kids with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan (first one was built last summer for the largest children's hospital). There are currently nearly 27,000 of them in our small mountainous country.
Thank you very much for making children's life more interesting, energizing and fun. We wish you the same!
Let All Kids Play team
(P.S. All playgrounds had been discussed with parents and where possible with children what they wanted. Leninskoe has a new playground whereas ARDI has updated its previous playround with some new elements).
Photos not for mass media use please. Thank you for understanding.)
Links:
Dear friends, colleagues and supporters all over the world!
It's already the end of January and spring is coming soon to your home and to Kyrgyzstan too where you helped to build playgrounds for 2 community day care centers - ARDI in the capital and "Child's dream" in Leninskoe v. - for children with disabilities and neighboring kids.
Both centers say, children enjoy going to their playgrounds when the cold weather permits. Saltanat Torobekova, an ARDI senior special teacher, is delighted, "Kids just love their new playground and go out with great joy when the weather is good. Those belts on the swings come really handy for kids with cerebral palsy who cannot fix their position." Saltanat loves working with children with special needs and likes sharing her skills (see photo below).
We are in the formal process of handing out playgrounds to day centers by concluding agreements with ARDI and Leninskoe centers, and hence we have completed a financial report which we would like to share with you (attached). Scanned supporting financial documents in Russian can be sent to anyone, pls send your request to letallkidsplay@gmail.com.
The good thing is we have a balance of 1,170 USD out of 5,129 USD (total amount minus commission) we received for the cause. Since the aim of the campaign was to build playgrounds, on your behalf we would like to divide equally these funds and donate towards building other 2 playgrounds in Osh and Karakol cities. So each one will receive 585 USD as a sturt-up fund to build on.
Why these 2 cities? There are 2 day care centers - one in Osh is located within the municipal rehabilitation center which serves upto 1,500 children with disabilities, another in Karakol is located in school which accommodates over 1,000 children. So not only our kids with disabilities who attend day centers will benefit from the playgrounds but most of those children too. Besides that there are active parent-led groups and they will be able to do some local fundraising.
We want to start another fundraising campaign to raise funds for those 2 playgrounds. Dates and amount will be anounced after consulting our partners and calculating budgets.
Thank you very much for your support,
Let All Kids Play team
P.S.
As a result of being featured on the GlobalGiving platform we've been contacted by David from wilderness-expertise.co.uk. They send UK school students to Kyrgyzstan this July and we agreed to provide some volunteering opportunities within our partner day centers in Bishkek, Karakol and Osh.
Links:
Dear friends and supporters all over the globe,
we reported earlier that the first playground for the ARDI day center in the capital was finished several weeks ago. On 3d December the International Disability Day ARDI made it official - the playground is open for kids. Photos show just some kids on the playground because it's winter and it's cold. Nevertheless they are happpy and summer photos will be more lively. :)
As for the Leninskoe playground, it was finished and set up on Int'l Disability Day last week. All the equipment has been covered in special paint to withstand bad weather. Parents are looking forward to spring to paint it in colors and make it fun. Otherwise, we think, it looks a bit boring. :)
Leninskoe photos taken during the process of setting up the equipment.
We have completed our financial report and should send you with the next report very soon.
So we can say that with your and GlobalGiving help we succesfully achieved our aim - to change the lives of 60 children with disabilities by building two accessible playgrounds thus giving them the chance to play with their peers and be included in their communities. But we don't stop there as we'll start a new project to build an accessble playground for a new day center for kids with disabilities in Karakol city.
We would like to thank everyone of you for your support and patience! Thank you GlobalGiving for connecting all of us throughout the world!
Our warmest wishes for upcoming holidays - a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Let All Kids Play team
P.S.
There are some other photos (during other periods of time) attached to show you background and community.
We'll send you more photos in spring and summer 2015.
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
