What I am doing in Central Asia is what I have done in other countries as well,
is, empower people living in the country to do whatever they can
to promote these ideas of open society and openness.
I know that I'm an outsider.
I have no real understanding of the region.
I have no
particular solution to offer for the problems of the region.
All I can do is help the people there to help themselves.
This film tells the story George Soros' Open Society Institute in three
Central Asian states.
In January 2005, George Soros,
founder of the global network of Soros Foundations, called a meeting
at the central office of that network,
the Open Society Institute in New York.
He was there to meet foundation directors from the Caucuses, Mongolia and three Central
Asian states: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
>>> As usual the Kyrgyz opposition is fragile, and a bit weak, and obviously that situation will
provide a clear plan and strategy of what to do for, with the presidential elections. As our
position side it's a bit,
tricky situation. >>> The regime was not ready to,
to allow more,
more debates or more dialogue
with the political, with the opposition in Kazakhstan. >>> Yes we are facing a lot of pressure. Tajikistan is going through the,
some examination time. >>> people inside the government will remain
very concerned. --George Soros made his fortune trading in the financial markets.
Over 20 years ago he decided to set up a charitable foundation.
I deflected long and hard.
I had more money than I needed for my family.
And what is it that I really care about?
And that turns out to be a rather abstract idea. The idea of an open society. So,
critical thinking,
democracy, market, these are the institutions that you need
for people to be able
to get
closer through them to improve their conditions in, in life.
From one Soros Foundation in Hungary,
there is now a global network of foundations and initiatives in over 60 countries.
They finance projects that advance this idea of open society. In Central Asia,
we'll look at an example of how it works in the far north of Kazakhstan, in a tiny village called Daut.
Galina Kuznetsova, from the Soros office in Kazakhstan
is flying there to visit a school where a grant has transformed life
for an entire community.
To me this school is like a phoenix that has risen from the ashes.
Nothing was here before.
Remote villages like Daut were hit hard by the fall of the USSR.
The were frequent power cuts. There is still no running water.
Five years ago, with temperatures reaching minus forty Celsius, the school was shut
down after its furnace broke.
Thieves stripped it bare.
But the school's Head,
Altynshash Aimaganova, wasn't ready to give up.
She moved classes into the train station: it still had heat.
There was no choice. The children had to study someplace.
The passengers would come here too. Sit quietly. It was a hard time.
Hundreds of communities were in a similar condition all over the former Soviet Union.
The Soros Foundation stepped in.
When the government collapsed,
practically anything that one could do to keep culture
and administration going,
was a contribution.
The Soros Foundation in Kazakhstan announced a community school competition.
Any school director from a small community could apply for a modest Soros Foundation grant.
First of all, we knew nearly nothing about the Foundation. When I wrote the application
essay I was rather skeptical
and didn't believe in it. So I didn't tell a soul.
After a while, I forgot about it.
There is a
transparent
and equitable process of
distributing grants because there's always a temptation to give it to your brother-in-law
or
friend or so. So, we
generally announce competitions
and we have a very orderly process of selecting the grants, and then publishing the grants.
To her surprise, Altynshash made it through to the next stage: a visit from the Foundation's representative, Galina Kuznetsova.
When I came here for the first time,
and I remember it very well,
because almost everyone gathered there, in the school hall. Almost the whole village.
The place was full. That is when they said to me, "If they close our school, we will die here.
There will be no village anymore.
We have nothing left but the school."
Soros granted Altynshash's project $4,000.
Some of the money bought the equipment necessary to put in windows, and fix the school's heating.
The children moved back in.
But the heart of the project was to make the school into a center for the community,
so some money went into this house, with facilities for both school and village.
When we started the first project, we decided not to ask for computers or anything
extravagant.
Instead, we built in a workshop and a bakery.
I thought it was important for people to learn to do something practical, and to see concrete
results.
That, I knew, would give people hope.
So, here in the bakery, school children now can learn to make the bread they eat in school.
When you're making bread you should be aware that dough also has its own character.
If the character is hard then the bread will come out hard. But if it is nice and soft then the bread will
rise well and come out nice and soft.
They learn necessary and useful skills in this rural community:
sewing, and woodwork.
My first visit to this gym shocked me.
I came in through the doors and started looking around, measuring the dimensions.
I stepped inside, and fell through the floor! Exactly from this spot, because there
was no floor!
It's been a huge change.
The year before the school was reopened there were three teenage suicides in this
village of 1100 people.
Since then, they have been none.
Tell me what government is.
Let's decide what sort of society we want to live in. Let's decide. Tell me. Free?
Right.
Good, a democratic society. That's rather similar.
The idea of the project is to show other small communities that, by restoring
the school, the community itself can be renewed.
This school is actually the only place where people can get together.
Older people, young people for their discos.
It's the only place where our
local government can organize their elections and village meetings.
And if you put some more soul in it, and expand it, then the school begins to be the
heart of the community.