Go to Chapter II

By Kira Yugay

Peace and democracy was the theme the team of high school seniors from Uzbekistan chose for their website entry into the State Department’s Doors to Diplomacy contest. A controversial topic, Uzbekistan’s history is neither democratic nor very peaceful because human rights have been violated in the past. Thus, Uzbekistan: Opaque Reality became an eye opening experience not only for the four of us from the Taskent International School who were involved in creating the website but we hope it will also open the eyes of those who will view it. The web address for Uzbekistan Opaque Reality is: www.tashschool.org/peace/main.html

Uzbekistan is a Middle Asian country bordering with Afghanistan and is not well known in the West. Amy Demblon from South Africa, Dae Uk Kim from South Korea, Alyona Asyamova from Uzbekistan and I felt that we knew a lot about Uzbek history and culture from our studies and our field trips. Just how much we didn’t know about Uzbekistan became very evident once we started work on this project. “We were unfamiliar with the political life of our country and had no idea how much we would learn about these issues through our project,” said Asyamova.

We gathered a lot of data and wrote reports on interviews we conducted with local leaders, expatriates, foreign businessmen, journalists and foreign diplomats. Some interviewees didn’t want us to reveal their names and to share their personal opinions for fear of creating problems with our government. Many of them believed that the situation of human rights in Uzbekistan needed great improvement and they weren’t seeing these improvements being made. Some of the interviewees predicted a sad outcome for the current situation unless some important changes in the government were introduced. Writing about these interviews and the surveys we conducted among more than one hundred people was one of the biggest and most unexpected challenges for us and we had to be creative about how we went about it. Checking and double-checking every phrase was essential.

As our work was nearing completion, we became more and more committed to our project and its objective: to share our new knowledge with others and make our world a better place to live. We wanted people to know what human rights violations take place in Uzbekistan – things that the free world takes for granted like the right to move around the country, free and fair elections, women’s rights, rights of children and most importantly freedom of speech. Also we felt that it was important to tell about those who struggle for justice in our country but who remain unknown. There are many non-government organizations (NGOs) in Uzbekistan teaching Uzbek citizens about their rights and watching to see that if those rights are implemented. If more people knew that there are people fighting for our rights, we believe that fewer human rights violations would occur and our world would be much safer.

We didn’t expect to win first prize for our project. There were so many interesting websites submitted by other schools. When it was announced that we had won, we couldn’t believe it. We were to go to Washington, D.C. and receive an award in the State Department Treasury Room! Talking to prominent diplomats like the Legislative Assistant to Representative Lantos who is the Director of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus was very inspiring. It made us see that our voices made a difference and for some, this session may have affected a career choice. Our trip and our discussions with other students and diplomats gave us many new insights and impressions.

Certainly one of the most valuable lessons we learned from our project was the importance of working together as a team where everyone’s input was critical. We learned to think critically, consider many viewpoints and be open-minded and diplomatic. Most importantly, through this project we were able to see some political shortcomings which inspired us to wish to improve things. We are further encouraged by the emails we have received from many people who have told us how helpful our project has been to them. We have realized that by telling people about our country, provoking questions and sharing ideas, has inspired others as well. This was an invaluable experience and the fact that we won first prize was the final proof that the doors to our opaque reality were opened and maybe some day they will become more transparent.

Left to right, Dae Uk Kim, Alyona Asyamova, Kira Yugay, Mrs. Thomas, and Amy Debion.