How Kuvonish's path is becoming a road of joy

How Kuvonish's path is turning into a road of joy

How do you measure the pursuit of a goal? By the energy, time, and health spent on achieving it. And also by the kilometers of off-road travel, in heat and cold, six days out of seven. For children living in remote areas of Karakalpakstan, the goal is to get an education. It is quite realistic, but the distance from home to school is different for everyone: some have 5 km, others have 15. Kuvonish walks 13 kilometers every day because he wants to study... And there are thousands of children like him in Uzbekistan.

On September 22, the Cinematica cinema screened the director's cut of the documentary film "Quvonish yo‘li / The Path of Joy". Kuanish translated from Karakalpak means "joy". "The Path of Joy" is not only long and difficult, but also dangerous — along the way, as the boy's father complained, there are jackals. However, despite everything, Kuvonish overcame all obstacles every day. His story became symbolic, because thousands of Kuvonishes live in remote areas of the country, for whom the path to education is long and hard. It was this story that became the starting point of the Maktabga Xavfsiz Harakat project.

The project unites businesses, government agencies, and public organizations — Hayot Foundation, the CSR platform of the NGO "National Center for Support and Development of Initiatives Renaissance", the Republican Center Kelajak, Gross company, Kapitalbank, Orient Finans Bank, Buro Not From, Cinematica, and UZGPS — to solve the problem of children living in remote regions of the country. Now, the journey from home to school and back has become comfortable, fast, and safe for many of them — children cover the multi-kilometer path daily in comfortable school buses.

What started as a social initiative has today become a part of the daily life of children and their families. The video, also presented at the event, told about how the project works now: buses transport children, and routes have already been established. The next stage of the initiative is to strengthen safety and control of transportation.

As part of the event, Hayot Foundation signed memorandums of cooperation with UZGPS and Cinematica.

UZGPS equips buses with GPS trackers that allow real-time location tracking — parents and children can see what time and where the bus will arrive, route compliance, driving objectivity, as well as an SOS button for quickly sending a signal for help in an emergency. All information will be stored in the company's archive for a year.

The partnership with Cinematica, in turn, will allow continuing the conversation about social topics through cinema and visual stories accessible to a wide audience.

The film director and the creative team also participated in the event.

Participants of the Maktabga Xavfsiz Harakat project spoke about the first results of the project and its further development.

A safe road to school is not just a bus. It is the joint work of many participants: those who help purchase transport, organize routes, work with schools and regions, create stories capable of attracting public attention, and implement technologies that increase safety. It is the unification of business, government structures, public organizations, technological and cultural partners that allows turning social initiatives into real changes in the daily lives of children and their families.