Central Asia Youth Leadership Academy

Yekaterina Geldimuradova, a former school teacher in Turkmenistan, was eager to improve the existing education system’s approach to child development. "The conventional system fosters conformist behavior, where children are expected to simply do as they are told, without enough opportunities for self-expression and creativity," says Yekaterina. "This can result in a lack of self-awareness and boundary-setting skills and can even make them feel unimportant." In response to this problem, Yekaterina launched the first Montessori-based education center in Turkmenistan, Perzent Bilim Merkezi (“Children’s Education Center”).

On December 8, 2022, local news about the death of a lone snow leopard on the outskirts of Almaty, Kazakhstan, went viral. According to the autopsy, the death resulted from a plastic bag found in the animal’s stomach. For Menli Atayeva, a Central Asia Youth Leadership Academy (CAYLA) alumna from Turkmenistan, cases like this are an alarming testimony to human-caused ecological disaster. “Given that there are only about 180 snow leopards left in Kazakhstan, it is essential we do something to battle the extinction of this species,” she says.