Оn June 2, 2009 the Social Initiatives Support Fund (SISF) jointly with the "Microcreditbank" and "People's Bank" will be holding an exhibition of achievements of women-farmers аt the "Expocentre" in Tashkent. The exhibition will be presenting women-farmers who are participating in the project. The purpose of the activities will be the recognition of the achievements of women-farmers in the project and presenting awards to the best participants, who have greatly contributed to the development of women's farming in Uzbekistan.
With the aim to improving the quality of life of citizens of Uzbekistan, who need social support, SISF has developed and has been implementing social programs and projects. They are financed by domestic and international donors on a regional and national level.
One of such projects is «The provision of microcredits for women-farmers» project, consisting of three phases, which began its work in 2007.
Seventy women-farmers from 7 regions of Republic from Djizzak, Navoi, Samarkand, Bukhara, Andijan, Namangan and Ferghana regions obtained micro credit of 500 000 sums each, which was used as "Start up capital" to help develop the foundations of their business and to support new an innovative small scale ideas.
In addition to receiving start-up capital the program recipients attended trainings and seminars, where they studied accounting, management, business planning, and other important subject that enabled them to developed new directions of businesses and in some cases create new jobs and employment opportunities in their local communities.
Successful implementation of the project during the past 3 years has enabled the women-farmers to exceptional results in the farming industry, increase the capitalization of its farms, contributing to the development of the farm movement, get new knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship for rural women, and the introduction of the new advanced technologies for the rural economy, to improve the economic situation of their families.
The purpose of the exhibition of women-farmers is to demonstrate the potential of all women farmers to a mainstream audience by showing the results achieved by rural women in the past 2 years (2007-2008). It will highlight various products of our country, such as: agricultural, animal and poultry products, products manufacturing with using advanced technology, milk-producing, hand-made carpet products, gold embroidery products, handmade embroidery, ethnic national shoes, handmade wicker furniture much more.
After the exhibition there will be held an awards ceremony for the winner of women-farmers project, which will honor the most successful and most distinguished participating of the project.
These events not only honor this project but also support the Republic of Uzbekistan's 2009, "The Year of rural development" program.
The following project partners will be formally presented at these events: Credit Unions "Asr", "Tayanch", "Sherdor", "Mador", "Umid", "Lastochka", "Ishonch", the Association of Credit Unions, the Association of Accountants and Auditors of Uzbekistan, DVV International (Germany), NDI (USA), AgLinks/USAID Project (USA), the representatives from international organizations, embassies, and NGO partners.
Information on the Fund's activity is available on the official website at www.sisf.uz
For more information please refer to the Programs Director of SISF Elyor Abbosov.
Contacts: tel./fax: (998-71) 239 29 38/39/40.