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2. Tech Age Girls Community Service Projects
IN THIS ISSUE
Tech Age Girls Promote Peace through
National Cuisines and Art
TAG Finalists Open Door to
Technology for Village Youth
TAG Alumni Prepare Next Generation
of Youth Leaders
TAG Alumni Found
Educational Club in Naryn
Bazar-Korgon TAG Alumna Creates
Video to Promote Dental Health
Tech Age Girls Bring
New Opportunities to Orphans in Talas
TAG Alumna Teaches Healthy
Habits at Her School
Tech Age Girl Brings Generations
Together on Common Ground

3. Community Service Projects
OVERVIEW: Tech Age Girls 2010 out due to it. In response, the TAG alumni decided to
promote peace by uniting representatives of all the
different ethnic groups and showcasing the best of the
In 2010, IREX started the first Tech Age Girls
region’s cultures, demonstrating the beauty of their
(TAG) project in Kyrgyzstan with 90 participants se-
traditional costumes and styles of dance at an inter-
lected from 246 applications of young girls ages rang- national festival they organized.
ing from 14 to 17. For over six months they attended
Information Technology (IT) and leadership trainings,
designed and implemented community projects, and
documented their experience via blogs. The TAG pro-
ject has been enormously successful as implemented
within the Global Connections and Exchange program.
The 26 most active girls had an opportunity to attend
a two-week summer conference where they partici-
pated in an intensive training program in IT, leader-
ship and project design skills. During the conference,
TAG designed community projects and later applied
Sixth grade students performing a Chinese dance at
for small grants to IREX; 20 received an award and Nogoev School in Massy, Kyrgyzstan
went on to implement their community projects. In all, 60 students ranging from the first through the
eleventh grades of Nogoev school and School No. 38,
along with directors from an additional three area
Tech Age Girls Promote Peace schools, welcomed local government representative
Mavluda Abdullaeva, regional education official Gul-
through National Cuisines and mira Borbieva, and local parents to Nogoev school’s
Art gymnasium. As Nogoev school is host to many ethnic
groups and a trilingual community, it was a natural
Following their participation at the TAG 2010 Summer venue for such an event. By bringing everyone to-
Conference, TAG alumni Zulya Makambaeva, Dilnoza gether to celebrate diverse cultures, the festival
Umaralieva, and Alina Avazbekova organized an inter- served to strengthen bonds among groups, and pro-
national festival to promote peace in their commu- mote multicultural understanding among the partici-
nity, by uniting and celebrating the members of the pants and guests.
diverse cultures in their region.
At the festival, students performed the traditional
Girls from the south of Kyrgyzstan are very concerned dances of the Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tatar, Georgian, Arab,
about the ethnic conflicts and tension between the Turkish, Scottish, and Latin American cultures. The
Kyrgyz and Uzbek peoples. Large-scale clashes oc- audience of about 100 people greatly enjoyed the fes-
curred in the summer of 2010, taking away many lives tival; the mood quickly became one of joy and cele-
and leaving negative sentiments. The tension remains bration in the multi-ethnic crowd, and the talent the
in the region; sometimes even in schools, fights break community’s children demonstrated particularly im-

4. Community Service Projects
pressed the parents in attendance. At the end of the (http://gcekyrgyzstan.ning.com), as this site had be-
international dance performance, the organizers pro- come an integral part of their own lives. The students
vided an international banquet of dishes from the cul- enjoyed exploring the Network, finding interesting
tures represented. forums, blogs, and making friends with other youth
from Kyrgyzstan.
The TAG alumni and the school administration can say
with certainty that the project achieved its objec-
tives. During the three weeks of preparation for the
event, the students of different ethnic backgrounds
became closer to one another, as they spent a great
amount of time together working toward the same
goal. In organizing this festival, the first of its kind at
their school, the students created friendships among
students of different backgrounds.
The alumni plan a second festival for mid-March, and
will then host another in Massy’s town square in April.
The TAGs used goal-setting games in their
Video of the first festival is available at http://bit.ly/ training activities.
eJtdNQ.
In addition to their training activities, the Tech Age
Girls also conducted an outreach effort for the TAG
TAG Finalists Open Door to project in Ak-Suu village, preparing 40 girls for the
Technology for Village Youth new round of recruitment.
TAG finalists Svetlana Sheiko, Aijarkyn Aisahunova, Grateful for the TAG alumni’s visit to her village, Ak-
Saikal Murat kyzy and Aizada Ismailova from Karakol Suu student Akylay Nurlanova commented, “I am
organized ICT training sessions and led workshops on really happy that here in Ak-Suu we have such oppor-
gender, time management, goal setting, leadership tunities. We would like to thank [the] TAG girls for
and journalism for 60 Ak-Suu village students at Kirov providing us new information and teaching computer
school. literacy, as it is very important in today’s world. We
also want to become like the TAG finalists – confi-
From October 1 to November 1, 2010, three times a dent, knowledgeable and enthusiastic to achieve new
week, students from the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades things.”
attend their training program. The TAG alumni, want-
ing village youth to have the same opportunities as
their urban peers, taught the students how to access
TAG Alumni Prepare Next
important information via the internet. While educat- Generation of Youth Leaders
ing students on resources available to them on the
Aidai Asanbekova and Begaim Saparalieva created a
internet, the girls directed students’ attention to
club at their school where they conducted a “training
Kyrgyzstan’s Educational Network
of trainers” series on information technology for ten

5. Community Service Projects
student volunteers. Asanbekova and Saparalieva met In addition to IT training at their own school, the club
six times over two weeks – 12 hours, in all to teach led two separate one-day events at the Davka School
the volunteers how to train students at their school in for Disabled Children and Orphanage No. 3 in Bishkek.
technology. They organized IT training sessions, leadership work-
shops, contests, and musical performances for 40
youth at the two events.
The Tech Age Girls’ presentations inspired the youth
to think about how technology can change their own
lives, as Asanbekova emphasized the importance of
disabled children’s contributions in every community.
The youth took the opportunity to show their own tal-
ents during musical performances at the events, and
thanked the Tech Age Girls for their work. A video of
the club’s project can be found at the following link:
TAG Alumna Aidai Asanbekova conducts a http://bit.ly/eYZVrJ.
seminar on leadership
The student volunteers then went on to work with TAG Alumni Found Educational
Asanbekova and Saparalieva to pass along what they
had learned to their fellow students. Overall, 80 stu-
Club in Naryn
dents at school No. 5 in Bishkek received internet re-
“If you build it, they will come.” This was the motto
sources and leadership training over the course of Oc-
of three Tech Age Girls who decided to open an edu-
tober, 2010.
cational club in Naryn. TAG alumni Zina Kabylbek
kyzy, Aidai Muratova, and Nazik Asranbekova observed
that there was nowhere in Naryn where students, chil-
dren, and adults could learn IT skills. In the cases
where Naryn’s community members were learning
about technology, what they studied was all too often
theoretical; the girls wanted to provide practical
knowledge of the internet that would help people dis-
cover new things, and open new worlds.
The girls conducted a series of IT training sessions on
Facebook, Gmail, and Twitter, along with additional
workshops on gender equality, time management, and
TAG alumni host a presentation to children at
the Davka School for Disabled Children business etiquette at the resource centers of Naryn’s
Schools No. 7 and No. 8. During their sessions they
paid special attention to the issue of bride kidnap-

6. Community Service Projects
ping, still a big problem in Naryn. Bride kidnapping, Bazar-Korgon TAG Alumna
also known as marriage by abduction or marriage by
capture, is a practice in which a man abducts the
Creates Video to Promote
woman he wishes to marry. The girls explained to par- Dental Health
ticipants that there are laws on violence against
women, and taught girls their rights in defending Staying healthy is very important – especially taking
themselves. To date, 50 students have taken part in proper care of one’s teeth. In Kyrgyzstan’s provinces,
the training sessions. many people do not pay enough attention to dental
care, resulting in numerous problems with their teeth
later in life. TAG alumna Nurjan Turdumatova has
been concerned about this issue for years, and after
winning a grant from IREX, she took the opportunity to
do something about it in her community.
Using the internet,
Turdumatova col-
lected information
Students participate in a team building activity on dental issues and
at a TAG-founded educational club in Naryn
how to resolve them,
and created a bro-
Educational club participant Amanda Japarova com- chure explaining the
mented on the club’s training sessions, sharing that importance of
“After participating in all of the IT trainings and ses- proper dental hy-
sions on various topics I became inspired. There are giene, and the con-
so many opportunities out there. On the internet you sequences of ne-
can learn individually about any sphere that you glecting one’s teeth. Nurjan from Bazar-Korgon
In addition, Turdu- prepares discs with her dental
want, you make friends and get information on new hygiene video to distribute in
opportunities for development. The sessions on gen- matova created a her community. The video is
available at:
der equality helped to get confidence. Thanks for video on dental http://bit.ly/gXeAgM
TAG alumni for doing all this.” health, using the
skills in video editing
she developed at the TAG conference. In support of
her video project, she visited a dental clinic and in-
terviewed a dentist, who gave tips on proper dental
hygiene in the video.
Sixty-five discs of this video were distributed in the
Bazar-Korgon community; as a result of her work,
Zina Kabylbek kyzy conducts a
seminar on Business Etiquette
many students became better informed about correct
dental care.

7. Community Service Projects
TAG Bring New Opportunities to Another TAG alumna from Talas School No.2, Burul
Sabyr kyzy, also visited the orphanage. She and her
Orphans in Talas friends prepared booklets, posters and Powerpoint
presentations on using ICT in everyday life. The girls
After returning home from the Tech Age Girls Summer
also provided leadership sessions for the youth, and
Conference, Symbat Asanova started a community
organized activities on how to become leaders. Burul
project to impart the knowledge and skills she learned
created a video about her event at the orphanage,
at the conference to kids at a Talas orphanage.
available at http://goo.gl/8qdZ4.
Asanova visited the orphanage, met with the kids, and
took the opportunity to explain the importance of ICT
in today’s world, and the opportunities available to TAG Alumna Teaches Healthy
them through the internet. During her first visit, Habits at Her School
youth were inspired to learn computer skills and were
eager to start the training. She held a series of IT In Bazar Korgon’s Bokonbaev school, there were no
training sessions for the 23 orphans at Nanaev School, hand-washing stations. TAG alumna Elina Madan-
where the youth learned about Google applications, bekova was very concerned by this, as she knows that
opened email accounts, and learned about social net- regular hand washing is an essential factor for main-
working sites such as Facebook with great enthusiasm. taining good health and hygiene. Hand washing re-
quires only soap, water and a hand washing stand.
With a TAG small grant, Madanbekova purchased a
hand washing stand for the school, and using skills she
developed at the TAG Summer Conference, presented
a Powerpoint presentation on the importance of hand-
washing and created hygiene booklets and posters to
distribute to 125 students.
Youth at an orphanage take part in ICT training
The training was a door-opening experience for the
orphans, as they had never thought that ICT could be
the bridge to so many opportunities for them. Jyldyz
Japarova, a girl from the orphanage, expressed her
gratitude: “I would like to thank Symbat for providing
us this useful information and teaching us computer
Thanks to TAG alumna Elina Madanbekova,
skills. I liked that with the internet, you can make students fight illnesses with their new
friends and share your impressions, and get really
useful information.”

8. Community Service Projects
Bokonbaev school’s administrators were amazed at (available for download: http://goo.gl/i7F9n). Follow-
the initiative their student demonstrated and thanked ing the round table series with students, she held a
her for helping the school community. Now, after the second series for parents, giving them similar tools to
presentation and posters that Madanbekova created help them communicate with youth, having fewer
and hung around the school, everybody tries to wash conflicts.
their hands frequently.
Using video editing skills she developed at the TAG
2010 Summer Conference, Anna presented a video she
TAG Brings Generations created on social conflicts at the end of each of her
round tables. The video can be viewed at http://
Together on Common Ground goo.gl/ckJW1.
In her community project, TAG alumna Anna Leon-
tyeva concentrated on working to solve conflicts be-
tween generations; a problem she chose due to its
relevance in her community. Leontyeva recognized
that people from different age groups usually view
issues from different points of view; youth often see
matters from a point of view which may be limited
from lack of experience. Adults, however, have seen
the world from many perspectives and have become
wiser, but sometimes disregard newer, younger views
on issues of importance. Differences of opinion be-
tween generations can thus often occur, sometimes
with the potential for conflict. Anna set about to find
a way to lessen misunderstandings and bolster positive
communication.
Anna Leontyeva from Kant is con-
Anna prepared questionnaires for students at her ducting a seminar on generational
school to find out the percentage of students facing
such conflicts. Collecting data from the 40 students
who participated in this survey, she found that 80% of
the participants have experienced conflicts between
themselves and older generations. Motivated by her
findings, Anna organized round table discussions for
students and parents at her school, to explain the
problem of inter-generational conflict and misunder-
>> Follow the Tech Age Girls!
standing. In a series of four round table discussions of
ten participants each, she gave a PowerPoint presen-
tation on ways to minimize conflicts, and handed out
take-home brochures with additional information