The United States has delivered 75 tons of U.S.-manufactured food worth nearly 22.4 million Kyrgyz som ($256,000) to the Kyrgyz Republic. The shipment, made possible through the U.S. government-funded International Food Relief Partnership (IFRP), contains a nutritious vegetable and legume mix for distribution to health and social care facilities and needy households, according to the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek.
In a ceremony on August 15 at the National Tuberculosis Center, U.S. Ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic Lesslie Viguerie marked the delivery of the food by providing a certificate to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health. Attendees observed a demonstration of how kitchen staff use the legume mix to prepare soup, plov, and samsa.
The food will reach over 20,000 of the most vulnerable citizens of the country in more than 80 health and social protection facilities, long-term care for patients with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (TB), orphanages, and psychiatric institutions.
“The International Food Relief Partnership shows how governments, non-profit organizations, and American manufacturing can come together to help people in need,” Ambassador Viguerie said.
IFRP is a U.S. government program that supports the production, transportation, delivery, and distribution of shelf-stable, fortified, and prepackaged foods by U.S. non-profit and public international organizations. Each package includes dried carrots, onions, rice and lentils.
The U.S. government, the Kyrgyz government, the Kyrgyz organization Ergene, and the U.S. non-profit organization Resource and Policy Exchange partnered together to deliver this food. Since 2006, IFRP has delivered 1,000 tons of food to Kyrgyzstan, worth more than $3.6 million in foreign assistance. Resource and Policy Exchange works with Ergene to distribute the food.
