Postcard from Bishkek

I’ve mentioned before the work of Hugh Coulter in support of the private orphanage in Karakol - several times as it happens. He was working in Karakol on a project financed by the European Union and came across the orphanage almost by accident.  Impressed by the work of the orphanage, Hugh and his family found themselves getting involved in […]

Over the New Year I was channel hopping and saw that, once again, the film the traditional films were being faithfully screened in their customary time slots.  Just as we used to sit down to watch our regular annual dose of The Sound of Music, The Great Escape or Zulu … so the television channels […]

I came across a rather disappointing article in the Guardian the other day: Donations to charity fall 20% in a year.  Understandable … but disappointing all the same. A survey conducted for two organizations uniting charities in the UK, (the Charities Aid Foundation and the National Council for Voluntary Organizations), has found that donations made to […]

Last week the latest newsletter from Healthprom arrived in the email. I have written about Healthprom before, (for example: here), about their work, (particularly in Kyrgyzstan), how I came across them and why I like their particular approach.

Back in March, I wrote a postcard about the UK based charity Healthprom which had held an international conference on “intellectual disability” here in Bishkek. Shortly after posting it, I was surprised to receive an email from a client who had worked on a project with them in the past, who thanked me for the […]

In the weekly postcard last Saturday, (Oh, the humanity), I mentioned that I had met up with Hugh Coulter and his wife Jean, (who run fund raising efforts for an orphanage and two Microcredit funds in Karakol), and that they promised to distribute the regular quarterly update on their various activities. Well, the report has […]

These days, news travels far and wide.  This fact was brought home to me last week by a letter which arrived addressed to the hotel. There was no addressee on the envelope, just two UK stamps, an “air mail” sticker, and a printed label displaying the hotel address, (with Bishkek misspelt).  Inside were three small […]

This last week I have had a stream of visitors asking to see me, each of them, so it seems, with an air of shy embarrassment and hopeful expectation, and each of them clutching a piece of paper. I know them all.  We’ve before and the conversation starts with general small talk: How are you?, […]

Like, I imagine, most people around the world, I have been watching events in far off Japan and around the coast of the Pacific Rim’s “Ring of Fire” with morbid fascination. Safely cocooned and beavering away in my office at various mundane tasks, muttering to myself under my breath at each and every one of […]

I have written before about Pamir Bridges, a Swiss charity that aims to renovate bridges in rural areas, often high in the mountains, in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. Last week I received the notification of four “soirées”, or Cultural Evenings, they are organizing in March and their Annual General Meeting which will be held in […]