Jibek Turgunbekova ’13 (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan/ Keota, IA)
Project Title: New Generation (El Campo)
Project Location: Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan
$1306 in 2014 FLEX Alumni Grant Program Funding
FLEX alumni and Peace Corps volunteers teamed up in the summer of 2014 to offer 73 high school students from across Kyrgyzstan hands-on trainings to develop their communities through project management trainings and to develop themselves through leadership and soft-skills training events. FLEX Alumni Grant program recipient Jibek Turgunbekova ‘13 worked together with 15 active FLEX alumni in Kyrgyzstan and 12 Peace Corps volunteers to conduct a nine-day camp at the Mukash Abdraev Republican Special Boarding School of Music in Bishkek. The youth participated in sessions to develop their leadership skills, to learn about current health issues and ways to live an active and healthy lifestyle, and to seek out ways to be an active member of their community. Organizers also held trainings on grant proposal writing and fundraising to help the participants find the means to organize community service projects when returning back to their communities. The camp was funded in part by the FLEX Alumni Grant program and in part by FLEX Alumni fundraising projects held throughout the spring of 2014. Alumni held community events, whose proceeds went to support the camp and promote it among the community.
In the third year of the New Generation project, also called El Campo, organizers strived to teach young people in Kyrgyzstan skills to contribute to a stronger, prepared, and critically minded next generation of Kyrgyzstan. In anticipation for the 2015 program, organizers will include a small grants program for program alumni to support the social initiatives implemented in communities across the country.
New Generation in the press: http://www.vb.kg/doc/278325_v_bishkeke_proydet_obrazovatelnyy_lager_el_campo.html
