Within the Small Grants Programme, 47 articles in media were published, 4 public hearings were organized, 3 workshops were held, and 5 public awareness events were conducted. In total, 548 citizens participated. Today, organizations that implemented the local grants are meeting in Karaganda at the workshop with other civil society groups. They plan to discuss way to facilitate further cooperation.

"The best way how to solve local problems is to activate the citizens. Civic groups implemented small grants and showed their power and creativity when involving their neighbours and addressing responsible authorities. Their effort contributed to chemical safety and the improvement of the environment for the life of themselves and their children," says Martin Skalsky, project coordinator of Arnika.

"Our experts provided local groups with help in planning their campaigns, publicity, or by seeking ways of tackling serious environmental pollution. Now, we need to keep up the public pressure to enforce solution of revealed problems," stated Julia Kalmykova, small grants manager of EcoMuseum.

In total, 11 projects were submitted to the Small Grants Program from Karaganda, Akmola and East Kazakhstan oblasts. The requested sum of money exceeded EUR 30,000. Projects were assessed by the group of experts from the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, and Russian Federation.

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