A story about volunteerism that brought together two young teachers.

Dilfuza Djolgashova

Dilfuza Djolgashova, a 25-year-old teacher of fourth grade, enjoys the warm sun with her kids on the first day of spring and shows it her radiant, beaming smile.

Since childhood, Dilfuza had a great love for children and learning. She later entered the Pedagogical University of Karakalpakstan in the city of Nukus in the direction of primary education. After graduating from university, she returned to her hometown Kungrat and began teaching at school number 6. She now has 17 students in her class. As part of the joint project “Investing in a resilient future of Karakalpakstan by improving health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene and wellbeing of adolescents and by harnessing the talents of youth during and after COVID- 19”, funded by the Multi-Partner Trust Fund for Human Security for the Aral Sea Region in Uzbekistan, Dilfuza was invited to participate in the volunteer training. The training was aimed at strengthening the human capital and resilience of youth through empowerment, at developing social innovation skills in three districts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan (Muynak, Kungrat and Bozatau).

Dilfuza smiles, remembering the first day she met Azizbek. It was November 2021 when they were called to participate in a training for volunteers organized by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). She was anxious when she first came to the training because she had graduated from university only recently. She just began her professional career, and everything seemed new. To make matters even worse, the road was long and Dilfuza ended up late for the training. She blushed terribly when all the faces of the participants turned to look at her. Shy and timid by nature, Dilfuza constrained herself from asking questions. Yet, “at the very first session, trainer Salamat Otepov asked everyone who came to the training against their own will to leave the conference room and to stay only for those who really want to gain new knowledge. I stayed". Dilfuza shares how despite her anxiety, she persevered and yearned to learn.

“In general, after five days of training by UNFPA trainers Damira Tokhtasinova and Salamat Otepov were able to unite us, completely unfamiliar people, into one team, turn us into a family. We received a lot of knowledge on reproductive health, family planning, healthy lifestyles using the peer-to-peer methodology. At the end of the training, we were sad to leave. Also, the most active participants were given tablets so that in the future we could apply the information received in our work to educate young people. All the necessary information was loaded into these tablets in an accessible form.”

Dilfuza also spoke about how she met her future fiancé Azizbek, a teacher from the Bozatau district of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, at the training. “As I already said, I was late for the training and at that moment, as it turned out, my fiancé paid attention to me. He was the first to show signs of attraction. Azizbek, teaches junior classes at school, we have a lot in common and therefore we quickly became friends. We met in November, and at the end of May, his relatives already came to us to wed. It seems to me that every girl has her own image of an ideal life partner, and Azizbek turned out to be just that for me. Even more gratifying is the fact that he also went through these trainings and knows a lot about gender equality, healthy lifestyles, reproductive health and fully supports my career aspirations. We are already thinking about our children, about the need to plan a family, instill in children from childhood the habits of proper and healthy nutrition, and protect them from various infections.”

Azizbek Toreambetov

Twenty-seven-year-old Azizbek Toreambetov works at school number 7 in Bozatau district as a primary school teacher and a youth leader.

“First of all, from participation in the training I received very useful knowledge and learned how to properly convey this newfound knowledge to the audience. But I’m even more glad that thanks to this project, I found my happiness. My life has completely changed, I can say that for sure.”

Under the project, UNFPA trained 123 active youth volunteers, teachers and psychologists. Trained volunteers held information sessions for their peers and schoolchildren on issues related to reproductive health, family planning, healthy lifestyles, and HIV/STI prevention. More than 14,000 teenagers have been reached by such sessions.

“I would like to emphasize that during the training we were able to reveal our potential, got motivated, learned how to speak confidently in front of an audience, and expand our network. The format was very interesting, the energy of the training, the fascinating form of presenting information about seemingly sensitive topics. I am absolutely sure that the training helped me and all other participants to begin to realize our potential.

After the training, we were all actively involved in the process of teaching our peers and students in schools. With the help of the peer-to-peer method, we can convey information about rather complicated health issues in an accessible form to young people. After all, not everyone can easily accept information about sexually transmitted infections from a teacher, agree? But young people need to be trained, now there is a lot of harmful information on the Internet, and they need to be taught how to filter it.

I myself come from a family of teachers, my parents worked as teachers all their lives. I have three sisters; we lost our father quite early. So, I am now the head of the family, at the same time I am very close to my sisters, they trust me, I know their interests. My parents gave everyone higher education in the family. I have plans to continue my studies and get a Master’s Degree and open my own learning center. I do not have ambitions to become a government minister, I am not after high rank positions. I just want to be useful to my country, I want to strengthen the role of men in the field of primary education, which is quite difficult and at the same time very important for development.

In my future family, of course, I also plan to give my children a higher education. For this, it is simply necessary that my wife also realizes herself as a specialist, does not limit her life to everyday life. I believe that achieving gender equality is a necessary condition for development, and I want to prove through the example of my family that this is achievable.”