Center for Natural Resources and Sustainability

On February 22, 2022, Kazakh-German University, with the support of the Eurasia Foundation, launched a project to involve young people in solving the environmental problems of Almaty. The uniqueness of the project lies in the fact that the project is being implemented in partnership with non-governmental and non-profit environmental organizations in Almaty, such as: PF "Protect Almaty", PF "Recycle Birge" and PF "Green Oi".

Events held and goals of the project:

1) On March 18, 2022, a seminar “City of Active Citizens” was held at KNU as part of the project “Involving youth and students in solving environmental problems using the example of Almaty”.

During the seminar, the participants got acquainted with the activities of environmental NGOs and listened to presentations from environmentalists and activists in Almaty:

• Saltanat Tashimova and Zhanna Nurseitova spoke about the activities and success stories of the NGO "Protect Almaty" and the NGO "Green Oi",
• Sergey Kuratov and Svetlana Spatar from the Ecological Society "Green Salvation" presented the importance of preserving national parks,
• Co-founders of Recycle BIRGE Aliya Salmenova and Pakizat Saylaubekova spoke about the activities of the Recycle.birge Ecological Movement.
• Khalida Azhigulova gave an interesting tour of advocacy and human rights for a clean environment.
• Anara Forrester introduced the participants to the cultural heritage of Almaty. and monumental art of Kazakhstan.

2) As part of the project implementation, 11 people successfully completed environmental practice in NGOs in Almaty, 3 of whom subsequently applied for the implementation of their environmental mini-projects.

The project involved:

128 people - listeners, 11 project participants, 2 eco-projects from students. There were 4 seminars held, internships for students in NGOs in Almaty, and eco-projects implemented.

Foteh Rakhimov conducted 3 seminars within the framework of the project:

Seminar "City without Smog" - October 7, 2022, at DKU.

Seminar "Water Day". November 11, 2022, at Kazakh Agrarian University.

Seminar "Scientific solutions for water, energy and food security in Central Asia". December 7, at AlmaU.

Within the framework of Kristina Andreyeva's eco-project for students and schoolchildren, together with RecycleBIRGE, "Instruction for Greening Educational Institutions" was developed in Russian, English, and Kazakh, with information on separate waste collection, solving the problem of excessive consumption, sharing economy. It was presented at DKU for students; at School 105, School 27, and Gymnasium 111 for students in grades 4, 9-11.

The project helped to establish communication between students of Almaty universities through joint seminars and also helped to find common interests among universities for further cooperation in the field of ecology.

The instruction manual on sustainable lifestyles, developed as part of the project, will help conduct further activities on sustainable lifestyles in universities and schools.