OSCE Centre in Bishkek supports community policing with training course

CHOLPON-ATA, 23 August 2010 - A course for community policing instructors started today in Cholpon-Ata town in the Issyk-Kul province, with support from the OSCE Centre in Bishkek.

Community policing advocates close relations and co-operation between police and the communities they serve and the five-day course will focus on advanced training methods for community policing, through interactive methods, video and visual aids.

An expert from Slovenia who will teach the course has reviewed the community policing curriculum used in the Kyrgyz Police Academy, the Secondary Police School and observed training courses there. He will help participants in the course adapt their teachings for the police practitioners, training cadets and police managers. The expert also will assist in developing a community policing exam and a community policing text book.

"Police officers in Kyrgyzstan are aware of the benefits of community policing as compared to older policing methods still in use in the country," said Tarmo Viikmaa, Community Policing Advisor at the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. "To be able to use community policing, they must learn how it works in practice - and the educators taught in this course will help them do so."

The Chief of the Kyrgyz Police Academy's Department of Administrative Law, Nuriya Mamatazizova, added: "This training course will allow the local community policing trainers to acquire knowledge and necessary skills to get to know new formats and methods of police-community work, and to exchange experiences on issues related to police reform."

The support for the training course forms part a community policing project that is part of the OSCE Centre's Police Reform Programme.