Kumtor Employees Supported the Karakol Zoo

published: 18 April 2016

A group of Kumtor Gold Company employees visited the Karakol Zoo on April 16 with the aim of assisting its staff to get ready for the summer season. Kumtor employees organized a clean-up event at the Zoo, planted the seedlings, painted and cleaned the cages of animals. The most fearless volunteers helped the administration to feed the animals.

The event was held as part of the intercorporate program “Ambassadors of Kumtor,” which aims to involve employees in the projects funded by the company. Since the program’s start in 2015, the Kumtor employees altogether have spent about 2,000 hours on volunteering, having taken part in more than 40 events.

“For our company, support of environmental projects is one of the four funding priorities within our strategy of overall sustainable development of Issyk-Kul Region. Therefore, when the Karakol Zoo appealed for support, we could not ignore their request, after all it’s the only zoo, operating in the territory of our republic, where visitors can see very rare species of fauna, even those listed in the Red Book. It is very interesting for us to be involved in such projects, because they are joining efforts of many employees rather than only one department of the company,” the HR Department Manager Bolot Asanakunov said.

Recall that Kumtor has been supporting the Zoo during several years, being one of the major sponsors of the only zoo running in the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic. Since 2013, the company’s contribution to the development of the zoo infrastructure and maintaining its life and activities has amounted to almost KGS 7.8 million. In 2016, the company will allocate another KGS 2 million for these purposes. The funds are spent for fortification of the Zoo fence, production of necessary equipment for cages and other administrative needs. At the moment, the Zoo is home to about 140 animals of 35 species.

“The Zoo employs 14 people: it is a small staff and we often do not have time to hold clean-up events. We are grateful to Kumtor employees for supporting us in their day-off and helping to prepare the open-air cage for our new nursling – a lion cub Simba. They have involved their partners from Karakol vocational school No.14, who carried out welding works and fixed the cages of the bear and wild boars. We couldn’t have held such a large-scale clean-up event by our own efforts and completed such a volume of work in a day,” the Zoo Director Saltanat Seyitova noted.