Putting a Face On Equality

Despite the challenges presented to her, Gulirano Saidova, a 16-year-old from a small village on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, is determined to further her education and improve the lives of others. In southern Kyrgyzstan, the lack of educational opportunities along with recent ethnic violence has hindered the ability of youth, particularly young women, to reach their full potential and to be leaders in their communities.

Gulirano Saidova is no stranger to helping others, a quality she demonstrated in applying to IREX ’s Tech Age Girls program. As part of her competitive entrance to the program’s quarter- final round, she and other young girls designed and implemented community projects as part of Global Youth Service Day. Her project assisted local senior citizens to improve the conditions of their homes, some of which were in a state of disrepair. She organized a group of 10 friends, raised money for supplies, borrowed tools, and made an effort with her group to clean and to repair the properties and public spaces of women living in her village.

Thanks to Gulirano’s Youth Service Day project and her demonstrated technical and leadership skills, she became a program finalist and attended the Tech Age Girls Summer Conference in July 2010, where she received advanced training and took on an additional community project. Gulirano developed a plan to encourage her female peers to organize a seminar to teach mothers and their daughters about educational opportunities. As she said in a recent TV interview, she sees the influence of gender-based double standards in her provincial region all too often. But having discovered that technology and education provide a vehicle for women to enter a high-profile field, she sticks by a firm conviction: in spite of obstacles, girls should apply for a higher education after finishing from high school and with the help of technology and access to information, they will succeed.

Tech Age Girls is a program of the OCSE, Peace Corps, USAID, and US Department of State.

The above story is originally featured in our 2010 Annual Report. With your support, we can continue to help young women like Gulirano become leaders in their community. Please consider making a gift online through our donation page.