Charity Begins at Home
Thursday, 5 July, 2007
Charity Begins at Home
Thursday, 5 July, 2007
On July 2, an initiative group announced a new project to encourage people in Kyrgyzstan to make charitable donations or volunteer their services.
One of the plan’s originators and backers is Askar Salymbekov, a member of parliament and a well-know philanthropist. He says the idea is to make charity and philanthropy part of the mainstream and encourage businessmen to get involved.
“This is being done to attract more businessmen and entrepreneurs to the movement and to ensure that people who give to charity enjoy respect,” said Salymbekov.
Philanthropy is not a new concept for Kyrgyzstan, but benefactors prefer to help people individually, and most private donations are given informally, avoiding charitable organisations.
“Charity in Kyrgyzstan used to be given by the Meerim Foundation,” said Salymbekov, referring to an organisation set up by former president Askar Akaev’s wife Mayram. “Now we want the culture of charity to permeate the whole of society.”
Edisa Abdrakhmanova, head of the League of Female Voters, which is also involved in developing the charity project, told NBCentralAsia that its mission is to do charity work and create mechanisms for philanthropu in Kyrgyzstan.
“We would like to set up a foundation which would gather funds efficiently, attract donors and minimise the losses incurred in transactions,” she added.
Project participants plan to bring together the diverse efforts of people interested in charity, and create an information exchange.
Tamerlan Ibraimov, director of the Centre for Political and Legal Studies, says there is no question that the public will benefit from a project like this, adding that the state should work on legislation that will make it easier for people to give to charity.
He adds one note of caution – the government will also have to put mechanisms in place to prevent charity activity being used as cover cor tax evasion.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
