If you were, the steps you took in Regent’s Park made an impact on individuals in Gujarat, the Kyrgyz Republic and Madagascar.

Gujarat
It is easy to take good sanitation and hygiene facilities for granted. However for many of the world’s poorest people, lack of access to toilets and poor awareness of safe hygiene practices can have damaging effects on individuals’ health and self-esteem.

Over the last year Aga Khan Planning and Building Services (India) has made progress towards improving the health and hygiene practices, and water supply and sanitation systems of 10 villages in Junagadh District, Gujarat. AKPBS has laid the foundations to ensure that the improved hygiene awareness and sanitation systems introduced by its programme are maintained by communities in the long term. To date AKPBS has:

• Developed and inducted 9 village development committees to ensure community awareness and support for the programme. 61% of committee members are women
• Established 5 committees to steer health and hygiene related activities for school children
• Trained 60 teachers in concepts of basic good hygiene for children, and received their suggestions towards a schools’ programme that is in development
• Developed and delivered training in good hygiene practices for women’s groups
• Identified improvements to be made to water management systems in 10 villages.
  

The Kyrgyz Republic
It is widely accepted that access to good quality education in early childhood is critical for an individual’s academic and personal development. Those who have had good Early Childhood Development (ECD) opportunities tend to live longer and healthier lives and excel at school. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, young children in the Kyrgyz Republic have suffered the combined effects of increasing poverty and reduced access to ECD.  Aga Khan Foundation (Kyrgyz Republic), through its local delivery partner the Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP), has been running pioneering ECD programmes in the country since 2005. Its initiatives have delivered demonstrable improvements in the educational attainment of young children.

Over the last year AKF (Kgz) and MSDSP have extended their established ECD programme to young children in villages in Naryn and Osh Oblasts districts, which are located in the most remote and poverty stricken districts in the country. So far AKF (Kgz) and MSDSP have:

• Trained over 350 teachers in ECD teaching methods to ensure that the education children receive is of good quality
• Trained over 1,000 parents and caregivers, encouraging them to play a more active role in the education of their children, for example by reading with them
• Established 170 kindergartens, some of which are specially located for children who spend the summer months tending livestock on remote high pastures (“jailoo” kindergartens)
• Established over 20 mini libraries, and provided existing mini libraries with books
  

Madagascar
In 2005, AKF embarked on a programme to reverse the poor rice yields of small farmers in the Sofia region of Madagascar. The PSSDRI programme improved the livelihoods of small rice farmers by introducing them to more efficient rice management techniques and training them in basic business skills. The yields of approximately 4,000 farmers almost doubled, and farmers were able to negotiate better prices for their rice.

Over the last year progress has been made in developing a programme to train approximately 4,000 more farmers in Sofia in techniques which will improve their yields, and develop their confidence in ensuring a fair price for their harvest.