Dust from abandoned uranium mine tailings, illegal waste dumps, the poisoning of river Irtysh by heavy metals, contamination of lake Balkhash, and severe air pollution. These are topics of the five projects that were financially supported within Small Grants Program which was coordinated by Czech non-governmental organization Arnika and its partners EcoMuseum and Centre for Introduction of New Environmentally Safe Technologies (CINEST) from Kazakhstan. The overall budget of EUR 12,000 was provided by European Union as a part of broader project "Empowering the civil society in Kazakhstan in improvement of chemical safety." The selected projects helped to solve environmental pollution which is threatening the health of about 800,000 people.
Within the Small Grants Programme, 47 articles in media were published, 4 public hearings were organized, 3 workshops were held, and 5 public awareness events were conducted. In total, 548 citizens participated. Today, organizations that implemented the local grants are meeting in Karaganda at the workshop with other civil society groups. They plan to discuss way to facilitate further cooperation.
"The best way how to solve local problems is to activate the citizens. Civic groups implemented small grants and showed their power and creativity when involving their neighbours and addressing responsible authorities. Their effort contributed to chemical safety and the improvement of the environment for the life of themselves and their children," says Martin Skalsky, project coordinator of Arnika.
"Our experts provided local groups with help in planning their campaigns, publicity, or by seeking ways of tackling serious environmental pollution. Now, we need to keep up the public pressure to enforce solution of revealed problems," stated Julia Kalmykova, small grants manager of EcoMuseum.
In total, 11 projects were submitted to the Small Grants Program from Karaganda, Akmola and East Kazakhstan oblasts. The requested sum of money exceeded EUR 30,000. Projects were assessed by the group of experts from the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, and Russian Federation.
More information:
|
Project title |
Implementing NGO |
Location and place of realization |
Pollution victims estimation |
Budgetprovided by the EU |
|
Illegal waste dumps impact on environment of Karaganda |
EcoObraz |
Karaganda/ Karagandy |
500,000 people |
€ 2,300 |
|
River Irtysh contamination by heavy metals from metallurgic waste |
Eco-Accord |
Glubokoe/ East Kazakhstan |
9,000 people |
€ 2,000 |
|
Public monitoring of the air pollution in Temirtau |
Otrazheniye |
Temirtau/ Karaganda |
170,000 people |
€ 2,220 |
|
Fighting toxic pollution of Northern Balkhash |
Balkhash Environmental Center |
Northern Balkhash / Karaganda |
30,000 people |
€ 2,500 |
|
Public involvement in remediation of uranium tailings in Stepnogorsk |
Institution of Human Health |
Stepnogorsk / Akmolinskaya |
70,000 people |
€ 2,000 |
