It’s been a busy few days for us here in Tashkent. As I mentioned in my previous blog post about Launch Day, the Ministry of Public Education (MPE) held a big meeting with the press to announce my project. It got a lot of media coverage. The press person a the US Embassy collected the online stories and emailed them to me, which was nice. Professional journalism is still a new field here so the stories our of varying quality. I don’t think any of them spelled my name correctly. Here’s links to some of the stories:
Laurie Wolfe’s Bullying project coverage:
https://kun.uz/ru/news/2019/01/31/mno-ispolzuyet-opyt-ssha-dlya-borby-s-bullingom-v-shkolax
https://podrobno.uz/cat/obchestvo/uzbekistan-budet-ispolz/
http://xtv.uz/Xtv/IndexBatafsil/71?ID1=1503
http://www.uza.uz/oz/society/maktablarda-z-ravonlikka-arshi-loyi-a-ishga-tushdi-30-01-2019
The day after the press conference was my first real full day of work. I arrived at the ministry building at 9am and was shown around. They have set up a room for myself and the other two people assigned to my project by MPE. I have a full time translator working with me and a wonderful woman who is handling all the logistics and admin type work. We have our own space with two desks set up, one for me and one for the other two to share. The woman in charge at the building, which is a facility used for teacher training and curriculum development, was so warm and welcoming. She was genuinely excited that we choose her facility to use as the home-base for this project. She had water, juice, tea and sweets set out for us on the desk when we arrived and even had someone bring in a plant to liven up the room. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had them take it out of her own office.
We spent the morning sketching out all the dates and times for the trainings we will be doing of school psychologists and then teachers. February and March are going to be incredibly busy and then in April teachers will be implementing the program in their classes. We will be supporting the teachers in their work and will have a bit lighter load then.
After lunch we headed out to tour the four public schools in Tashkent where we will be implementing the Positive Psych and Stress Management curriculum. It was extremely helpful to see the buildings and meet the Principal, Assistant Principal, and School Psychologist in each school, nearly all of whom are women. They also gave our team a warm welcome. Each school served us tea and put out some kind of cake, nuts, fruits, or other treats.
I noticed that the treats were placed strategically close to me, rather than in the center of the table. If I didn’t try something it was pushed closer to me and when I showed that I liked something I was handed more by one of the women sitting near me. It really was very sweet of them. at the last school they had these little apple filled treats. At the end of the meeting I asked if I could take one back to the hotel for my son because they were so good and I wanted him to try one. The principal was so please that I liked then she had someone get a small bag and they dumped the entire plate into it. Then they took the other tray of little cakes and dumped that in the bag and threw a handful of chocolates on top.
This was a great first day and I am excited for more long, but enjoyable days in the coming months.
Experience Fulbright 