"Karaganda Regional Ecological Museum" non-governmental environmental organization, "Center for Introduction of New Environmentally Safe Technologies" NGO (Kazakhstan) and "Arnika" NGO (Czech Republic) with financial support provided by the European Union present the Small Grants Program (SGP) launched in the framework of the jointly implemented "Empowering the civil society in Kazakhstan in improvement of chemical safety" Project.
The SGP is designed for people who want to resolve chemical safety issues and to direct attention of governmental bodies and local communities to such issues. NGOs and informal initiative groups of Pavlodar, Akmola, Karaganda and East Kazakhstan regions are invited to apply for grants within the SGP.
Small grants amounting to EUR 12.000 are available for applicants. Average budgets for 4-8 small projects are expected to be EUR 1500-3000. "The small grants program is a good opportunity for our nongovernmental organizations to implement their actions and campaigns on chemical pollution problems and draw public attention to these issues," said Yulia Kalmykova, EcoMuseum's specialist on interaction with local communities and consultant of small grants program in Kazakhstan. "People have to know how to maintain their rights and have to know the ways to do it," Martin Skalsky, coordinator of the project in Czech Republic, says.
The press conference on the Small Grants Program takes place in the Karaganda Ecological Museum (47 Bukhar Zhyrau ave., Karaganda, Kazakhstan) on 24 October at 11 a.m. Mass media representatives will be provided with information on first results of sampling at the most chemically polluted areas impacting the health of people in Central Kazakhstan. The sampling was carried out by the specialists of EcoMuseum, Center for Introduction of New Environmentally Safe Technologies and Arnika in July-August 2013 in the framework of the EU funded project
