Our organization has been officially registered as an NGO under the name “Zheti-Agash” with the Kazakhstan government since January 2012. Our main focus lays on the needs of women at risk and the prison population in Kazakhstan.
We have more than 10 years of experience of working with incarcerated and women at risk. Indeed, our team and specially Monika Vorbuchner had worked for a private, international organization that provided humanitarian aid and rehabilitative services for the women’s prison population. Unfortunately, this organization stopped to operate several years ago.
However, Monika decided to continue her work with the prisons through the support of various organizations. But, these organizations were not mainly aiming at working with incarcerated and women at risk and fulfilling these women’s needs. To give an overview, these are the main problems these women have to deal with:
- a culture of extreme gender inequality, domestic and sexual violence,
- a lack of education due to financial difficulties and opportunities for financial independence,
- a lack of available social and humanitarian services,
- a vulnerability and exposure to human trafficking,
- and severely limited support for successful re-integration into the community.
Monika decided to start “Zheti-Agash” in order to solely focus on fulfilling these needs and supporting incarcerated and women at risk to make positive changes in their lives.