Thousands of young people graduating from school are going to have graduation ceremonies. A life full of expectations and new experiences lies ahead of them. Entering colleges, institutes, universities, and academies—the student life of an array of exciting opportunities and full of fun-filled events awaits them. Or perhaps they set out to seek an interesting job—one that can include the lifestyle in which their parents and friends play a significant role. The more prestigious the institute, the more prouder the parents will be for their child.

Graduates of the children orphanages are also among these children – they too are celebrating their graduation evening! But this childish joy is marred by adult thoughts: “What will happen to us in the future? Which colleges or universities we will enter? Whom will we share our first steps into adulthood with? Who will help and support us?” Some children are afraid of graduation as if it is something incomprehensible, unknown and strange. This happens even though the staff of teachers, who brought them up, spent a great deal of time and energy to meet their main objectives: to educate them, to provide them with the knowledge of their rights, and to impart some important skills pertinent to independent life.

We should remember that our life consists of both dark and white pages. It often happens that we feel despaired, when it is dark page. But we have to move on, because dark pages our always followed by the white ones…

Nowadays there are a lot of public organizations and foundations which work on projects to support orphans, children from underprivileged families and disabled children. One such foundation is “Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation”, the main aim of which is to identify and support young talented people possessing leadership skills who wish to pursue higher education in order to use their knowledge for the benefit and development of our country. The educational grants are awarded on a competitive basis. The most important criteria of selection are a high level of academic performance, participation in public and social life and the personal characteristics of participants. The process of selection consists of three rounds: the first round is assessed on the basis of an analysis of the submitted documents. Afterwards, applicants who have passed the first round are invited to the city of Almaty, where the second round is to be held. The third round is assessed, considered and approved to enlist the finalists. It is conducted by the Board of Trustees of the Foundation.

The program has now been running for two years, and grants the graduates of the children orphanages who wish to attain higher education in leading universities of the country the opportunity to study in Kazakh National University named after Al-Farabi, Kazakh National Technical University named after Kanysh Satpaev and Kazakh University of Economics named after Turar Ryskulov. In January of this year Yerzhan Tatizhev Foundation announced the competition for educational grants. 34 graduates of children orphanages took part in the first round. 19 of the applicants progressed into the second round. We, the graduates of children orphanage # 4 of Stepnogorsk and a few pupils from the Youth House “Zhastar” – were among those 19.

Graduates of children orphanages of Akmolinskaya region tend to live in our Youth House from the moment of their graduation until they are 23 years old. Most of them, like ourselves, have finished colleges and pursued some professional skills and have jobs, but are still adamant on continuing their pursuits further. The majority of them want to continue their education in universities or colleges, but not all of them have such opportunities. Nowadays, not all parents can afford to give their children a decent education. As for an orphan, getting higher education is perhaps the most crucial problem. Fortunately, new opportunities for studying have appeared in our country. An increasing number of large companies have started to invest in educational improvements and awarding educational grants. All that is required on part of the orphans is their best efforts to be competitive in terms of the opportunities that await them. We stumbled upon the information about the educational grants of Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation whilst surfing the Internet, and became very intrigued by it. The Foundation provides their students with a complex support, which includes not only tuition fees, but also a good scholarship payment. We decided to take part in the contest without a second thought. However, just good luck is not enough to win. You have to be a versatile and charismatic person and be able to present yourself in the best way during the second round of the contest. In order to become the grant holder, applicants go through a rather complicated selection process in a highly competitive environment. The purpose of the second round is to identify the leadership potential of the applicants and to determine their personal characteristics. The uniqueness of this part of the contest is that different interactive methods are used in the process of selection, such as role-plays, conditional problems, individual and group assignments, etc. This approach creates the environment in which participants are able to fully demonstrate their leadership and organizational skills, teamwork, decision-making skills in complex situation, their ability to take initiative and their efficiency.

We would like to share with you our emotions and talk about the second round of this year contest.

Almaty is a wonderful south capital of Kazakhstan. There was a very pleasant cool weather in the city when we came there. After arriving we went down the busy streets to the private school “Aray”, where the second round of the selection was held.

During the first day participants were encouraged to get acquainted with one other. Contestants came from various towns and cities – Petropavlovsk, Pavlodar, Stepnogorsk, Uralsk, Shymkent, Taraz, Almaty, etc. We also got acquainted with the president of the Foundation, Marat Aitmagambetov, and his colleagues. The same day we managed to visit Kazakh National University named after Al-Farabi, or “KazGU” as it is more commonly known. We were looking forward to seeing one of the leading universities of our country. KazNU is a small beautiful town and the student life is very attractive. We were passing through the beautiful streets of this town trying to find the admission committee of the School of Journalism, which we had chosen as our preferred school. Also we had the chance to attend a review lecture of one of the prominent journalists of our country, M. Kozybaev.

On the second day, a competition program called “Galactic Natural Selection” was held. In the very beginning all participants were divided into four groups. After that they were registered and each applicant was given his or her own individual number. Before the “battle” began, the organizers of the program gave a speech and wished everyone luck. They also gave us some small gifts. The whole selection process consisted of various interesting, sometimes even tricky, individual and group assignments and competitions. The main agenda was that instead of using traditional scoring techniques, each contestant was assessed on the basis of ‘talent’ scores. Such an assessment method allowed the expert committee (among whom were members of the Foundation) to identify the most talented people. Throughout the whole day of the “battle’ there was an ambiance of true competition and true spirit. All the participants were very talented, resourceful and bright young people. After all, they were all the top students of their orphanages. At the end of the selection program the results of each team were summed up and each participant secretly voted in the elections of “Galactic Senate”. Each applicant was asked to choose those candidates whom they deemed most worthy in his or her own opinion. The expert committee had the cumbersome task to select 6 winners out of 19. In August, when the final results of the contest will be announced, we will find out who wins the ‘Galactic Senate’ in 2009.

On the third day of the program there was a photo session. The friendly smiles of all the contestants gleamed through the environment, giving way to a fun-filled and pleasant day’s end.

On the last day, all the contestants were dispersed back to their respective towns and cities. They were all warmed by the hospitality, new friends and the joyous memories from the events preceding their adventures’ end. Everyone left with the hope to become a part of the Galactic Senate for 2009.

P.S.

To conclude, we would like to thank the organizer, Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation, for giving us the chance to participate in the contest towards becoming a grant holder. Also we would like to thank the employees of the school “Aray” for their hospitality. We wish all the very best of luck to all the participants and sincerely hope that they are victorious in their pursuit to winning the contest.