A few days ago, with the beginning of school year Almaty hosted a ceremony of awarding Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation educational grants. School graduates from underprivileged families, graduates of children orphanages, as well as young people with disabilities became its beneficiaries.

This is not the first charity action of the private Foundation. Public Foundation “Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation” was registered on February 5, 2005. Over the years it became an authoritative non-governmental, non-profit organization that has done a lot of good things. Since its opening, the Foundation has financed a number of socially significant charity projects totaling 27 million 805 thousand tenge.

Among these actions, the most considerable ones include providing “Hospis” centre in Pavlodar with medical equipment, an acquisition of specialized transport for children with disorders of locomotor apparatus in Semey, purchase of equipment for “Kenes” centre, which works with disabled children, running a number of projects to improve social infrastructure in rural residents.

In addition, the Foundation participates in financing handicrafts in Kazakhstan together with “Eurasia - Central Asia” Foundation and Chevron company.

The Foundation is managed by the Board of Trustees that sets strategic goals and objectives of the Foundation’s activity, which is completely transparent.

Out of 170 people, who took part in the contest, 21 smart, bright, talented and ambitious young people became educational grant holders. The scholars will study in the leading universities in Kazakhstan – KIMEP, University of International Business, KazNU named after Al-Farabi, KazNTU named after K. Satpayev, KazEU named after T. Ryskulov. The Foundation will cover all the expenses of the students related to their studies during four years.

For the third year running, the Foundation awards educational grants for young people in need of support. This year, despite financial crisis, the Foundation continues its mission, thereby increasing the total number of its scholars to 49 people (recall that the program started with only 5 people).

The program of educational grants was announced on January 22, 2007. Within the program, the Foundation supports young people from underprivileged families, children orphanages and children with disabilities in their quest to get higher education. Good education has always been fairly expensive. That is why the program was created to support young talented and clever people, experiencing difficulties in paying for their further education.

The purpose of the program is to identify and support young disabled people, graduates of children orphanages and children from underprivileged families, who have an active life position, desire to overcome barriers, aim to acquire professional skills and use their knowledge in their further work

As the candidates and their parents say, the selection process for awarding the educational grants of the Foundation, which determined the best applicants consisted of three rounds and was built on principles of objectivity, impartiality and transparency. The Expert Commission considered candidates on the basis of certain criteria, among which the most important are academic performance, leadership skills and personal characteristics. The contest consisted of three rounds.

- The contest consisted of three rounds, - says Program Coordinator of the Foundation Askar Kaliyev. – The first one was conducted on the basis of the analysis of the submitted documents, which carefully studied the academic potential of the applicant, his or her accomplishments, awards and recognition, as well as the financial situation of his or her family. Apart from these parameters, special attention was paid to the essays, where applicants reflected their life position.

During the second qualifying round the candidates showed their leadership potential and personal qualities. 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 in complex situation, communication and presentation skills, speech and writing, creativity, intelligence and common culture, their response to activities and efficiency.

In the third round The Board of Trustees determined the winners of the contest

- The program of educational grants of Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation for young people with disabilities in addition to its direct purpose to provide financial support for these children has another very important goal, - said the permanent partner of the Foundation, one of the prominent defenders in Kazakhstan, a chairman of NGO “Association of Women with disabilities “Shyrak” Lyazzat Kaltayeva. – This goal is to show the society that there is a great need of inclusive education. Cases, when children with disabilities are enrolled in regular schools, colleges and universities, should not be a unique phenomena, but ordinary pattern. As a result, public will have self-sufficient professionals with disabilities, as well the new generation, which naturally perceives disability and understands that people are different, but equal.

It is not a secret that children left without parental care, orphans, and children with disabilities are not well-prepared for studying in higher-education institutions and cannot compete properly with children from families. The developers of the new initiative of the Foundation have taken that into account. They provide a comprehensive approach that enables young people to fully focus on their studies and demonstrate their potential.

During the test, they draw attention not only on the candidates’ study capacity, but also on their inclination, professional interest, civic and personal attitude, initiatives and perseverance in achieving their goals. The financial support is one side, the other one is that the person is ready to learn despite the life difficulties, and this is also very important. This approach is very effective – all the students entering educational organizations with the help of the Foundation perform very well on the exams.

A young graduate Mashrapov Doszhan is disabled, but today he is very happy because he has an opportunity to study in the Almaty State Polytechnic College, majoring in “Computer Engineering and Software”. Diana Palahanchidi graduated from a children orphanage and chose to study in KazNU, majoring in “International Relations”, Saya Abashova form Kyzyl-orda preferred to study accounting and auditing in Humanitarian College of Kyzyl-orda…

Yerzhan Tatishev Foundation helps them and many other young people to make their decision and not get lost in today’s complicated reality. Hundreds of people remember with gratitude the former CEO of BTA Bank who passed away tragically. And they will remember him, perhaps, for the rest part of their lives…