Education Kazakhstan Project #47018

Gift Personal Mentors to 100 Orphans in Kazakhstan

by Dara Private Foundation

Project Report | Jun 1, 2021
The spring of hopes

By Ainur Aimurzina | Project manager

NEW MATCHES IN SHYMKENT, PAVLODAR AND OFFLINE MEETINGS IN KARAGANDA

There are 7 new matches in Shymkent and Pavlodar.

Sometimes teenagers who are participants of the projects directly say who they would like to see as their mentor. Most of the guys from Shymkent asked for more male mentors.

The fact is that children in orphanages are mostly surrounded by female employees: at school, shelter, service centres. And it is important for younger young male people to have an example of male behaviour and understand their internal "laws". Young men sometimes find it difficult to entrust their secrets, and not everyone can ask for advice.

Some guys were lucky and found their mentors-men! But we are working further and looking for worthy candidates.

Meanwhile, we have trained the mentor candidates from the new set. «Can I? Is it necessary to adopt a child? And if I can't do it?» Many people who are interested in participating in the project face such questions. In Shymkent, the candidates for mentors received answers to these and other questions in an online format.

During the training, the candidates got acquainted with each other, the project rules and analyzed the difficulties that a mentor may face. Then the candidates will be interviewed and participate in the school of mentors. And having passed this path, they will be able to take the first step towards friendship with children who are very much waiting for them.

This spring was the spring of the realization of hope: mentors and children from Pavlodarfinally started their first personal acquaintance. They have been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and it happened!

We welcome new mentors, and wish them patience, flexibility, and a lot of warmth!

Greetings from the fire department

Alexey visited real firefighters and even looked at the world from the height of a fire truck. All this was arranged for mentor– Yesenzhol. They are also from Pavlodar/

Such moments are important in order to form a great friendship for life. It is not difficult to be a mentor, it is important to be close!

The school of mentors was held in Karaganda. Candidates previously trained on our platform for a month — education.dara.kz. The participants discussed in detail the issues of the psychology of adolescence, the peculiarities of the psychology of children left without parental care, as well as important aspects of working with children from orphanages.

In an interactive form, mentors were offered exercises to overcome barriers in communicating with the ward.

For example, the exercise "Support", aimed at realizing the importance of emotional support, accepting both positive and negative responses, depending on the situation. The mentors engaged in emotional support for each other. The negative answers were clear, with alternative options, eliminating the possibility of resentment from the partner as much as possible. Also, the psychologist of the project Lyaila prepared universal words for psychological support, taking into account the different directions of support:

Pointing to the strengths of the individual;
Empathy;
Recognition of objective complexity;
An indication of the strengths of the situation.

And this group of mentors was lucky too. After an interview, they got a chance to introduce to their future mentees offline. All the coordinators and mentors passed the PCR test for Covid- 19.

Meetings in person in Karaganda

With firefighters

Alexei in fire department

Playing football with mentors in Shymkent

new mentors in Pavlodar

new matches in Shymkent

Dasha and Danna from Pavlodar are like a family

Links:

Journalistic material about the project in Pavlodar

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Feb 1, 2021
28 and counting

By Ainur Aimurzina | Manager

Aigul from Uralsk and her mentees

28 new mentors signed contracts and met with their mentees

In 2020, in five regions (supported by the GlobalGiving) we received 274 applications from willing to become a mentor. And only 10 per cent of them became mentors. Much work remains to be done, as the 72 mentors that children are eagerly awaiting must be identified and trained.

Meet Aigul- a unique person, she is one of the coordinators of the project in Uralsk and mentor of two brothers.

Her introduction to the project took place in 2015 when the project was still in its infancy. And in 2018, Aigul along with another activist Damesh decided to become a part of the project and launch it in their city.

“It was complicated at the beginning when we first experienced the separation and mentors were leaving the project. There were cases when candidates for mentors did not pass on the results of selection, and it was necessary to build relations from the position of I’m «OK» - You«OK», - coordinator tells.

Moments like this pay off when you see the transformation of children just in front of you and how they open up.

One of the touching moments when my older mentee wrote to me in response to my birthday congratulations - «You are the best gift in 14 years». "He is emotionally closed, compared to his younger brother. And such rare messages are very valuable to me!- the mentor shares.

 Besides being a mentor, Aigul works as an ecologist and is studying psychology. The experience of mentorship and coordinating has opened up tremendous opportunities for personal growth for me. Change sometimes occurs through resentment, but behind it is huge personal growth. The main thing is «do not burn up», so it is important to create ecological relations starting from the self. Honestly hear yourself and listen!» - tells woman.

Atyrau became the tenth city where the project started and the first city in which it was launched online on April 1, 2020. The partner of the project in this region - «Social Development Fund «SANA». Since its launch, the project has received 66 applications, 28 candidates have been trained and only 15 of them have become mentors. Previously there were 18 of them, but for various reasons, three of them fell out of the project. In Atyrau, the project was launched in the midst of a pandemic, and the mentor had to wait a long time to meet the children. As a result, a group of mentors recorded a motivational video for the kids.

In Shymkent, although we received 122 applications and trained 26 people, only 3 of them passed all the stages and signed the Mentors agreement. The work with the children was conducted online: the coordinators held a video meeting with the children from the orphanage, together with the psychologist of the orphanage and our team.  Almost all of the activity came into the quarantine period, therefore no admission to the orphanage was allowed.

In Karaganda, candidates to become mentors have been trained and will be able to meet their mentees. They discussed in details the psychology of adolescence, the peculiarities of the psychology of children deprived of parental care, as well as important aspects of working with orphanages.

In case of that, the orphanages are not going to open its doors due to the pandemic, we are preparing the launch of an application that aims to introduce children to their mentors online with the use of shared games. It is expected that by the end of February we will be able to test it and apply it to all regions.

Aigul from Uralsk and her mentee

New mentors from Karaganda

About the project in local newspaper, Shymkent

Zoom calls with the team (Shymkent)

Links:

mentors from Atyrau

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Oct 5, 2020
To meet each other no matter what

By Ainur Aimurzina | Manager

Baking together after a long parting

This time period has been tough both for mentors and mentees. The lockdown and other restrictions became more severe, so participants of our project didn’t get any chance to meet in person with each other.

The children had to return to closed institutions again without any opportunity to socialize and this greatly affected them emotionally. Some mentors, who constantly take COVID tests due to their jobs, even managed to come to the territory of orphanages in order to talk through the fence (in compliance with the requirements for maintaining distance) and support their mentees.

If some of the wards and mentors had the opportunity to communicate online, then a large number of children are still waiting for their mentors. In this terms, we have revised the approach to training candidates for mentors and launched an online school for mentors. As a result, we trained 18 mentors in Atyrau, who are now preparing to meet their younger friends. In total, during the reporting period, 220 applications for participation in the project were received and 175 candidates applied to the online school in 10 cities of Kazakhstan.

Although were able to establish processes with recruiting and training of new mentors in the current difficult situation, there are still difficulties in meeting with children and organizing new matches. At the moment, the country is still in quarantine. In some cities (Almaty, Astana), there is an opportunity to meet with the mentee in the case of an up-to-date certificate on COVID. So, one of the mentors visited her ward in an orphanage and even baked a cake.

In order to keep up the interest to the project , as well as support mentors, we organize live broadcasts on Instagram with psychologists and current project mentors. These activities receive excellent feedback and the resources to stay positive. The link can be used to view the saved live streams

nailing some new skills

Cooking and chatting

Brand new mentors

New mentors are coming

Links:

Live stream on instagram with actual mentor

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