Kazakhstan Poverty Research - Friday, Sep. 15 (Day Sixteen)

Friday 15 September (Day Sixteen)

Visit Association of NGOs in Aralsk
Too many NGOs sometimes can make a trouble for the coordinated development. It is especially so when there is not good governance and too many self-interested NGOs. One of the articles I read about Kz before I left Japan was on the situation of NGOs in Kz. It mentioned NGIs, Non-governmental Individuals bidding for funding from abroad. According to it, the NGO activities are a kind of new business of those people with an easy access to foreigners. I felt it strongly when I met managers of NGO associations and one of managers doing micro-credit scheme in Aralsk. It did not look like micro-credit in development context but a small financing for profit. He had a very bad impression about Japan since the Japanese embassy rejected his proposal for funding, which I think was very much natural since he did not follow the proper process. We could not get the information.

Reunion with Ms. Akmalak
We visited Ms Akmaral again to get the information on NGOs and she promised to give us information once we listed up things we wanted to know.

Alexander Min at the Local History Museum
After the meeting with Ms Akmaral, we decided to have a visit to Local History Museum. History always fascinates me and I never skip off the visit to Museum. Although it was very much small museum, there were a lot of things telling the story of the prosperity and decline of Aralsk. I encountered unexpected figures in that Museum, those Korean Kzs who lived there. Some of them were highly regarded as war heroes and one of them was Alexander Min. I wanted to take a photo and they asked us paying 50 for each photo. I wanted to have newspaper articles and they told me they would make a copy. We made an arrangement and went back to the Museum after spending some time at the local market. And there was a surprise. The manager of the Museum refused to take money in return for those copied materials and he told us that he saw the newspaper article about us. That newspaper article in Kyzylorda showed its influence several hundred kilometers away from it. Instant cerebrity.., you never know what it is until you feel it.