The Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan said in a press release on February 16 that a project in Tajikistan will organise a business planning training course for 70 female and male prisoners in Nurek and Yavan prisons. 

The course will help prisoners build entrepreneurial skills and allow them to independently generate business ideas, and develop business plans. Training participants, who have previously attended vocational courses, will learn how to start new businesses and learn requirements of local taxation legislation. The project is meant to provide opportunities for prisoners to start earning their own income in order to help them re-socialise in society and continue their lives obeying the laws and public order.

“Hand out materials are being prepared based on business-plans templates of relevant organizations providing grants and loans so that imprisoned women and men can practice developing business plans,” the press release said.

“The results of completed vocational courses in Nurek and Yavan prisons showed prisoners’ high interest to participate in project activities, particularly related to business planning and project design,” it added. 

Training sessions are being arranged by the “Jahon” non-governmental organisation in cooperation with the Institute for International Cooperation of the German Adult Education Association in Tajikistan as part of the "Promoting Access to Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights to Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners in Tajikistan" (SECRET-3) project funded by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.