2008 Embassy News
Ambassador Jacobson visits Rasht Valley to Monitor U.S. Assistance Programs
Rasht Valley, Tajikistan. U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan Tracey Ann Jacobson, USAID Deputy Country Director Stephen Kelley and Mercy Corps Country Director Brandy Westerman visited Tajikistan’s eastern Rasht Valley on May 28 to monitor U.S. Government funded food, health and agricultural assistance programs implemented in six jamoats of the province. This is a five year USAID funded “Development Assistance Program” implemented by Mercy Corps in the Rasht Valley. The aim of the program is to reduce chronic food insecurity and vulnerability of households in rural parts of the country through health training, agricultural support and food assistance for pregnant women and mothers of children under two years old. In 2008 alone 5,400 residents of 100 villages were covered by this program.
Ambassador Jacobson visited two distribution points in the Boqi Rahimzoda jamoat, where 424 local women were receiving aid. She also visited a greenhouse in the village of Sangi Maliki in the Boqi Rahimzoda jamoat. The newly implemented practice of greenhouses is part of the agricultural component of the Development Assistance Program and allows the residents to grow crops earlier in the year. The greenhouse component was launched in 2006 with only 289 resident-volunteers, who shared their success with other residents. Now more than 2,000 household greenhouses have been constructed by families throughout the region.
Mercy Corps is a member of the Food Assistance Consortium in Tajikistan (FACT) which also includes CARE and Save the Children US and is in the final year of a five-year food and health program by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
During her one day visit, Ambassador Jacobson also met with students of the U.S. funded English language teaching program, implemented by local NGO “Ma’rifatnoki,” which is teaching English courses to thirty teenagers from low income families.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is a leading U.S. Government humanitarian assistance provider around the world. USAID has been working in Tajikistan since 1993 and has provided some $300 million from the American people to support the development of Tajikistan’s economy, health care, education, and democratic institutions.