In communities with unclean drinking water, women and young children may walk an average of three kilometers a day on unsafe routes to transport water home. If proper public health facilities have not been implemented, flooding can become more serious. This combination of time taken and diseases being spread often prevents these women and children from education or employment.
Tanatarova Aigul Mendibaevna, an independent business associate of IPAR, learned about these issues through the IPAR volunteer project two years ago. She realized that meeting this basic need could help individuals improve their quality of life and overall health, so she decided to do something about it.
Mendibaevna and several of her partners founded a nonprofit women’s health organization dedicated to providing women’s personal health services in water-polluted communities.
“It’s a business that has really changed us a lot,” she said. “All these people have great potential, but they’re all trapped in their own situations.”
Her organization worked with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyz experts to go to these remote villages where water sources were not accessible. They publicized the relationship between water sanitation and female diseases, carried out preventive measures against diseases caused by water pollution, and tried to help these communities install water-supply systems and improve the toilets. She also received corporate sponsorship for the water filters.
With the help of an IPAR honorary-level associate in a rural Kazakhstan town, Mendibaevna started to promote women’s health concept training and distributed water filters through the shop.
Tanatarova Aigul Mendibaevna is an intermediary between volunteers who want to make a real impact and communities that need help. “This is creating a meaningful path for people,” she said.
She believes the experience gained through her IPAR business has helped her prepare for that path. “I’ve become a better leader who can help others create change,” she said. “It’s really a dedicated cause.”