Azeri Community's Motto: "No Pain, No Gain"

Ziyafet Ahmedova, a community leader in Garatepe, receives recognition for her work with the Mercy Corps/CHF's Social Investment Initiative. Photo: Mercy Corps Azerbijan.

As with all conflict-affected communities, Garatepe has endured significant hardship. However, they have overcome challenges working as a community and maximized their resources to develop their community. Over the last 50 years, this village in Azerbaijan has absorbed 4 inflows of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). The first wave of refugees came from Armenia from 1948-1953. Forty years later, in 1988 some families from Armenia found refuge at their relatives in Garatepe. One year later, Meskhetian Turks found asylum in this village after events exploded in the Ferghana valley in Uzbekistan. Then in 1993, IDPs from the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict settled in Garatepe. The community welcomed and integrated each wave of IDPs and refugees. Local people provided them with clothes and food, settled them in their homes and in public spaces, shared their land and found them jobs.

The challenges the community faced in integrating IDPs were exacerbated by newly independent Azerbaijan’s transition to a market economy. lgar Kerimov, community member, says that during the Soviet period people from this village worked either in the collective farm system or state entities. All such sources of employment for the community have since broken down. Community members took up agricultural production when they received land shares in 1997. Locals say that at first it was very hard for the IDPs that are from mountainous regions and were previously engaged in animal husbandry and grape growing to adapt to the agricultural conditions of south-central Azerbaijan. However, over time the IDPs learned from the local population how to cultivate the land.

Community members in Garatepe began actively addressing these issues when it began working with international NGOs in 2001. A Mercy Corps/IRC community development project mobilized the Garatepe community and has sparked off a plethora of community initiatives. Three hundred people participated in the mobilization process, at the end of which a community group of 11 was democratically elected. In one and a half years the community succeeded in implementing 14 projects, 6 of which have been community financed.

Among the projects there has been the rehabilitation of main school, community centre construction, and open sports complex, and the construction of processing unit. In addition, trees have been planted with the support of ADRA. Daikonie, an international NGO, has trained one member of the community to be an Agricultural Extensionist. He has spread his knowledge gained to 42 other farmers. Furthermore, the community invested in paying a fee to receive business services from Mercy Corps/CHF's economic opportunity program.

The community has also worked with the Mercy Corps/CHF's Social Investment Initiative (SII) program to address the village’s insufficient electricity and has involved neighboring communities, government counterparts and local municipality in the process. With cash contributions from Garatepe and its neighboring villages and labor from a group of IDPs, the electricity supply has been improved to reach four villages in the area.

Ziyafet Ahmedova said that before working with the international NGOs the community did not know how they could solve problems on their own. Since working with Mercy Corps/CHF's SII, the community has partnered with the local municipality to construct a road, clean water canals, repair electricity transformers, rehabilitate electricity lines for IDPs, and repair electricity cables. Garatepe community has also built good relations with neighboring villages. An experienced Garatepe community member developed the budget for the project for a neighboring Ahmedaba community.

The community plans to keep up its hard work. Maintaining and sustaining community investments is very important to members of the Garatepe community. The community plans to clean the central potable water canal in the coming days and implement environmental projects like tree planting and establishment of a general waste container.

Vagif Kerimov, a community member, says that their slogan is "No Pain, No Gain!"