FSA FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan

FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan is a non governmental organization created by outoing young persons of Kazakhstan. The members of FSA FLEX Alumni Association are alumni of Future Leaders Exchange program, educational exchange program providing scholarships for best students administered by US Government since 1992. Though only in 2001 alumni of this program who studied in the US high schools during one year had created a registered legal entity.

All alumni of FLEX exchange program automatically become the members of the association.Currently, the youngest member of Associatino is 16, and the oldest one is 30 years old. De jure we have about 900 members, though de facto, there are about 60-80 active members in Kazakhstan who work and try to organize different events through out the year. The rest become just the participants of different projects. We aldo attract different volunteers and various organizations to join our projects.

FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan is responsible for organizing and executing of various projects that responds to such goals as: Community service/Volunteerism promotion; english language knowledge promotion and understanding of others nations culture; professional development, and other. Most events are annual, and they are known and recognized among Kazakhstani citizens.

One of the last events organized by our association were projects called We Are For A Beautiful City! and We Care!. The first one was ecological campaign, cleaning the main streets of one of the cities of Kazakhstan plus beautifying the streets by mounting the benches and trash cans along the streets. More than 100 people participated there from Almaty. We Care! project was a national antitobacco campaign that consisted of several stages: national antitobacco poster competition, seminars, debate tournaments and conferences at high schools promoting the bad influence of smoking, and auction called Drop Smoking! when citizens who were walking by the campaign could drop the cigarette box, and then to get a prize with Tshirt with logos of all sponsors and organizers of that event.

After collecting a huge amount of cigarette packs, participants burnt them. The other part of projects is related to charity events like giving concerts in elderly houses, collecting funds for assisting to orphanages, making trips to some entertainment places with orphans, etc. Such activities are usully held on some special events like New Year when alumni go watch movies with about 100 orphans, Thanksgiving Day and others. Members of Asociation do not forget about the resolution of youth issues in the country. Thus, up today it was responsible for numerous conferences and seminars by attracting specialists and professionals and bringing actual topics for discussion.

Ideas exchange always exists as a main source for well designed projects. So, as example, recently there was held a week training how to be successful in life for high school students of various villages through Kazakhstan. It consisted of series of workshops on job hunting, CV writing, interview skills and others.

Bright and unusual logos of the events, smart and active participants of the projects, briliant ideas are the things that make the activities of FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan to be recognized in Kazakhstan. All events organized by members of FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan make people being aware of existing issues in the country, bring everyones attention to it and encourage people actively participate in its resolution.

Such organizations as FLEX Alumni Association, in our opinion, shall assist to the development of the new liberal, democratic and prosperous way of living in the world. Since all events organized by FLEX Alumni Association of Kazakhstan aim to develop the civil society, lawful state, and stable democratic environment in Kazakhstan, we will try to continue our activity as sucessful as it is possible.