The fourth wave of financial assistance initiated by Biz Birgemiz (We are Together in Kazakh language) Fund will now reach 80,000 low-income families in the country’s rural areas.
Photo credit: strategy2050.kz
The fund was created by Kazakhstan’s First President Nursultan Nazarbayev in March. Nazarbayev made the purpose of the fund quite clear: the fund will be used “to fight the pandemic effectively while supporting the economy.”
“Additional resources must be mobilized. I propose creating a national fund that will accumulate and manage the contributions of those who want and can help the country in this difficult period. I think that the Nur Otan party (Kazakhstan’s ruling party) will be able to control the correct spending of funds to continue fighting the coronavirus. It is important not to leave a single person without the support he or she needs,” said Nazarbayev in March.
The fund has so far gathered over 28 billion tenge (US$69.3 million), including contributions from the nation’s well-known public figures. More than 470,000 families from 23 cities as well as nearby villages – nearly 1.6 million people – have received 50,000 tenge each in the fund’s three previous waves of assistance.
The fund also rendered financial assistance to frontline workers, provided masks to 100,000 families in socially vulnerable segments of the population and plans to complete the construction of new houses for families that suffered from floods in the Maktaaral district in the Turkestan Region in southern Kazakhstan in July.
Jas Otan, the youth wing of Nur Otan party, has more than 5,000 volunteers across the country who deliver food baskets and basic necessities to 256,000 families.
