Dreaming of a cow

In poor communities a little help can go a long way. When US Congressmen and women recently visited two women's credit groups in the semi-rural Leninskii district outside the Tajik capital Dushanbe, the women were asked what kind of help was most needed. Several responded "It's our dream to own a cow!" The comments were not forgotten. Several months after the delegation returned to the US, some members of the group wrote cheques to provide cows to seven women within the framework of CARE's credit programme. Tajikistan remains the poorest of the five Central Asian republics formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 with three out of four people living below the poverty line. "Natasha has changed my life! She is so useful, now I sell milk, yoghurt and cheese," Ashurakhon, Obidova, the leader of the Stakhanov Women's Group, told IRIN as she battled to keep her cow away from freshly baked bread cooling by the side of her modest house. Ashurakhon had no source of income after losing her husband in Tajikistan's brutal five-year civil war, that claimed the lives of 60,000 people and turned 700,000 Tajiks into refugees. A cow costs 500 soms (US $180) and those chosen to partake in the popular credit scheme have twelve months to pay the money back. Although it's quite a financial commitment for rural Tajik women, there's a long waiting list. "Extending credit to these women to buy cows is excellent, because the package always includes a calf that can be kept on to generate more income or sold off when it is bigger," Guzal Chulieva, a credit assistant with CARE told IRIN. The cows not only provide food and an income, but also the dung is dried and burnt as fuel during the harsh Tajik winters. "My daughter now goes to school, before I had a cow this was impossible," Muhabat Talilova, another group member, told IRIN. While many women in Leninskii are married, due to chronic unemployment many men leave to work in Russia and are not seen or heard from for months on end. Sharofat has two daughters and a son to support - she hasn't heard from her husband since he left for the Ukraine three years ago. That's partly why the women decided to organise themselves into income-generating schemes like the Stakhanov Group. The group has thrived with help from organisations like CARE. To date CARE Tajikistan has helped create 93 women's groups, 79 mini-farmers' associations and four water users associations, assisting more than three thousand people in central Tajikistan.