Life is a pleasure when shared with like-minded people
Within a few months, Olufta Kaarbekova has gone from being an abandoned, homeless wife to leading Jirgatol’s first dairy. We share her story as a start-up entrepreneur from Tajikistan, her business plans and dreams.Date:
Jirgatol (Tajikistan) – As her warm smile and traditional Tajik hospitality drive away the outdoor chill, Ms. Olufta Kaarbekova, 39, offers her guests freshly made Qurut, traditional dried milk bowls, and Chakka and Churgot, two types of sour milk. Things were quite different for her not so long ago, she says.
“A year ago, I wouldn’t have stood here with a smile,” says Ms. Kaarbekova, whose husband abandoned her and her two children after having left for work in Bishkek. “After my husband broke all ties with us and filed for divorce, his relatives began harassing me and the children. They forced us to leave our home.”
One of the country’s most vulnerable populations, abandoned or single women lead an estimated 300,000 households in Tajikistan – a Central Asian country where remittances from 1.5 million labour migrants abroad accounted for 41.7 per cent of GDP in 2014.
Excluded like many abandoned women from her former home and property, the first step in Ms. Kaarbekova’s recovery began when she became active in Asamat, a nearby self-help group that specialised in dairy production. Asamat, which means ‘dairy’ in Tajik, is one of 12 innovative Rasht Valley joint economic initiatives supported by a UN Women project.
With financial support from Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the project Empowering abandoned women from migrant families in Tajikistan provides comprehensive legal, social and economic support via 326 collective self-help groups to 3,000 abandoned women in two regions – 1,800 of whom, like Ms. Kaarbekova, live in the Rasht Valley in eastern Tajikistan.
With technical business development support from the NGO Fidokor, the Asamat self-help group officially registered as a public initiative body, becoming Jirgatol’s first dairy – with Ms. Kaarbekova as its leader.
“Asamat made me believe in life again. I used to have two cows and would convert their milk into different dairy products,” explains Ms. Kaarbekova. “Milk processing is what I am good at and what I do with most pleasure.”
The UN Women project supported the next step in Ms. Kaarbekova transformation: a tiresome fight through courts and family clans to gain alimony and access to her property.
“Unfortunately, many abandoned wives must go through this fight to gain their rights,” says Mr. Saidali Saidrakhmonov, director of Surkhob, a Rasht Valley social protection NGO that supports self-help group members with legal advice.
Thanks to Surkhob, Ms. Kaarbekova now receives regular alimony and lives in a beautiful home with her daughter, 12, and son, 6. She marvels at how her life has changed.
“Life is a pleasure when shared with like-minded people,” says Ms. Kaarbekova.
The daily collection point for up to 600 litres of milk in the summer from nearby villages, Asamat produces dairy products like Qurut, Chakka and Churgot that are sold as far as Dushanbe, the country’s capital. Ms. Kaarbekova enthusiastically discusses new products and production methods, and is busy on plans to grow Asamat.
Asamat’s initiator and local project coordinator Ms. Aisuluv Jenalieva, who mentors Ms. Kaarbekova and helps with business development, is optimistic about the dairy’s future: “Many tourists and alpinists visit Jirgatol every summer – and they prefer cheese,” she says with a wink.
And Ms. Kaarbekova’s next step? “I hope soon to own my own cow again,” she smiles.