Umir Nuri, "Rainbow of Life," Child Survival Program

The Umir Nuri program helped mothers and caretakers improve their caretaking skills by providing access to health information and services in the autonomous Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan near the Aral Sea. It also built the capacity of the partner organization, Centre Perzent, for improving child survival.

The program focused on managing diarrhea and pneumonia cases, major killers of young children in the region. They also promoted exclusive breastfeeding and improved nutritional practices to help children survive the vulnerable early years.

Counterpart International (Counterpart) and its partner, Perzent, rallied communities in two rayon (districts), Nukus and Takhtapukir, by establishing village health committees and working with 12 paid village health workers and four field officers. By working with local people and promoting new skills, Counterpart created a more successful grassroots health establishment than the previous centralized system in the region. The project used "infotainer" – creative publications to connect with the villagers in the local language.

Village health workers collaborated with the new village health committees, community-based organizations and directly with mothers and their families in those villages both with and without health committees, to convey key health messages to engage communities, families and individuals in protecting the health of infants and young children. Unique, easily understandable materials – written, video, drama and songs in the local language – provided families with booklets and pamphlets to use as a resource and reference guide for illnesses.

Accomplishments:

• Mothers who sought medical care for Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) and pneumonia on the same or next day increased from 57.1% to 72.7%; 
• The percentage of mothers who could properly prepare and give oral rehydration therapy to prevent diarrhea increased from 42.3% to 89.0%; and 
• Exclusive breastfeeding of children less than 6 months of age rose from 30.5% to 74.5%.

Counterpart Global Scholarship Program: "Leaders for a Sustainable Future"

The first Counterpart Global Scholarship was awarded to Malika Yarmatova in 2004, an Uzbek woman actively involved in her community and pursuing a business degree. Second-year student at the Kelajak Ilmi International Business School in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Malika won a summer internship with an excellent academic and leadership portfolio.

Malika enjoyed an internship at Deloitte & Touche Company, which specializes in tax, audit, consulting and corporate finance fields. As part of the auditing team, Malika worked with the Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF). The organization is supported by the USAID mission in Uzbekistan and teamed with the field operations of Counterpart in the Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya regions.

She impressed the committee with her solid academic record, outstanding history of community involvement and display of leadership skills. Before joining the International School of Business, Malika was leader of the local Youth Movement "Kamolot" and a writer at the Junior Club of Journalists. She also worked on a project that provided a free on-line English-Russian-Uzbek dictionary with 70,000 business term entries.  The school also has established a training center for medical specialists to learn English, and arranged to teach English to orphaned children. 

In addition to the summer internship opportunity at Deloitte & Touche Company, Malika had her tuition covered for one year under this scholarship. She has since graduated from the Business School, yet her passion and focus continue to lie where private sector meet social responsibility.

The Counterpart Global Scholarship seeks to empower young leaders by creating a sustainable future through education. Past recipients have included a memorial award for a young man in Iraq studying engineering; a group of female students studying the effects of mother-to-child HIV transmission in Guyana; and a Senegalese woman from a rural village with dreams of higher education.