On 28 September, 2013, the parents of the students at a vocational school in Vorontsovka village in Alamedinskiy district, Chui oblast, held a meeting with participation of the traditional knowledge project team from Rural Development Fund.
The school principal, Bubukan Sydykovna, introduced the RDF team working on the project on “Dissemination of Kyrgyz traditional pastoral and environmental awareness and support for community in co-management of mountain ecosystems in the Kyrgyz Republic” to the school staff and the parents.
The project coordinator, Kuluipa Akmatova, gave a brief presentation about RDF and our initiatives to revive and promote traditional knowledge of Kyrgyz nomads. The project expert, Tilekeeva Jyldyz, explained how RDF worked with other educational institutions, in particular with pilot vocational schools #28 in Belovodskoe village in Moscow region and #81 in Bokonbaevo village of Ton district, where we had developped 6 methodological guidelines and helped install the knowledge of our ancestors to the modern farming curricula.
Tilekeeva also supported the parents’ initiatives for introducing Kyrgyz traditional drink, kuurma tea, to the students’ diet by intriducing it to the school cafeteria menu. Kuurma tea is simple and cheap to make, and, at the same time, it has a lot of useful nutrients for children’s growth. The audience was very interested in the information from the project staff and asked many questions, including the most important: How they can adopt the experience from pilot schools.