Tuesday 7 October

We went to visit a kindergarten today, in the middle of a migrant area on the outskirts of Bishkek. It was built in Soviet times and has now been given a new coat of paint. This is a kindergarten set up by women’s NGOs helping to integrate and educate the children of migrant settlers who have little or no money and need child care and education for their children. Thousands of families are migrating from rural areas to Bishkek. They can rely on the kindergarten to care for these children, accommodate their basic needs.

It’s funny that one moment I’m struck by the massive differences of culture and wealth, and the many things that I take for granted and that just don’t exist here – a gap between two cultures, I suppose, and what closes the gap is the fact that families can be so similar.

I remember being a child and the excitement of drawing a picture, an adult comes in and takes an interest in what you’re doing. I felt the same excitement from these children when I played with them, crouching down on the floor, building a lego house.

So from the kindergarten we went to Kaiberen (“little goat”) Youth Centre run for the children of migrant families by this wonderful lady, Djergal, whose vision and initiative brought this centre into being. We were driving along this earthy pot-holed road through what seemed like a wasteland – prowling dogs, bits of rubbish, and then we stopped our UNICEF cars outside this small house. There were Djergal and the children she looks after. This is a youth centre, so it’s an additional place that they come to after school or between school hours. They can play chess, they can learn English, they can work on computers. The children here are older than the children at the kindergarten. They seemed about 9 to 12 years old. We were presented with a song and a little dance, and a sketch about the dangers of drug abuse.

Here, in this centre, the children were alert and there was a spontaneity in their faces. Some of them spoke a few words of English and they loved saying “hello”. They had all apparently been shown The English Patient, poor things. I can’t imagine what they made of it. Then they had a dance. This little eight-year-old boy, talked, introduced himself, and then asked me onto the dance floor. They all joined in, we all danced together to an ersatz Madonna noise on the boom box.

All of us were really impressed by Djergal. She felt like a force. There’s no question that the work she is doing with UNICEF’s support has really created a place where the minds and emotions and imaginations of children can be engaged. She held up a vase full of water and flowers and said: “children are like flowers; they need water;” and she was clearly watering the children here.

We drive to a town called Kara Balta where we meet this really great guy, Kalibek. He has set up a youth radio station, Radio Volni which weirdly translates as “Healthy Airwaves for Youth”.

Like the media centre, his students focus on local stories of young people. One of the key subjects is HIV/AIDs and drugs. We talked to them about a radio programme they were making, called Pyramid. A 20-minute-long radio programme that provides a forum for young people to discuss local social and economic issues. I gave them a short interview.

We saw their TV newsroom: blue cloth hanging behind the chair and a desk. Across the room their own homemade chat show area, a sort of sofa and two chairs. I loved the simplicity of it. And the initiative of it.

We went to an orphanage which was, in a way, the saddest place, even though these young children were full of energy and dying to be played with. I threw these boys into the air. They shrieked with laughter. I remember, as a child, my father or other adults playing with us and throwing us around in a playful, gentle way, and the thrill of it and the hysterical laughter and the joy that release of energy can give you. The background here is quite bleak. A lot of the parents of these children can’t afford to keep them or else there are drink or drug problems in the family. The main objective of the orphanage is to reunite the children with the parents, but sometimes this fails and the long-term solution is adoption or fostering. And then there are other problems involved: legal requirements and medical issues which have to be met before a child can go to a foster home.

Leaving that orphanage, again impressed by the dedication of everyone, the women involved. Driving back through the rain. I think of all the voices and children’s faces, hopeful, hoping.