07/06/2017

In Kashatagh, rural communities self-organize through a Mutual Aid Union

The Kashatakh region is one of the seven administrative units of Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In the early 1990s, as a result of the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, many civilians were compelled to leave their houses and move to the Kashatakh region of Nagorno-Karabakh. After this time, the internally displaced people (refugees) have managed, to some extent, to settle down their lives after being displaced from their homes.

The Menq - Union for Farmers’ Mutual Aid (FMAU), established in 2003, has been among the first organizations to provide systemized and coordinated support to the settlers of the rural areas in the Kashatakh region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Its pilot project aimed to assist newly settled households and relieve the settlers’ hardships connected with housing, establishing farms, and developing stable sources of income. 

During its years of operation, the Menq has proven to be a successful social entrepreneurship initiative through its ‘handover’ funding-regenerating projects on cattle-breeding, apiculture, and poultry farming. The union has provided more than 50 families in various villages with a regular means of income, coordinating also the development of apiculture. Apart from its development projects, the Menq has also been involved in a social assistance program, providing lump sum payments for new born children throughout the union’s beneficiary families.

The Menq was organized as an NGO. The schemes of farmers’ mutual aid programs have been developed and approved by the 15 founders and implemented mainly by the Union with the direct participation and supervision of the chairman of the Union. Young people in civil society actively participate and are involved in the project through personal/private donations, volunteering and offering fundraising assistance.

See the whole case study