FLEX Alumni Activities in 2009-2010

Teach the Orphans at S.O.S

The project is successfully continuing. Ramil Kazimov ’05 is leading the classes on a regular basis on Thursdays and Sundays. The Classes are very interesting for kids and they are enjoying their times in learning English. Through series of guest speakers they are taught different aspects of the language and are learning fast. 

On March 14 Amy Petersen has volunteered to be a guest speaker at SOS Orphanage. She has talked about Road Directions and asking for assistance to students: how should they approach when desiring to ask someone for help and similar issues.

Conversation Clubs

Conversation Club has carried some changes in its structure both leader wise and organization wise. From now on, we have created a real database about our Conversation Club participants and will be working with them in order to provide them with some of opportunities that FLEX Alumni receive or organize themselves. Project is going towards becoming more structured entity because there is an initiative of creating cards for Conversation Club leaders through which we can differentiate them from others.

For now the admissions to Conversation Club are closed and will be opened in September.

Leaders of the Conversation Clubs in 2009-2010:

Ulkar Akbarova ’09, Raisa Akbarova ’09

Elvin Musayev ’09, Ozal Aliyev ‘09

Rahman Mustafayev ’09 (Sumgait), Rustam Yusufov ‘09 (Sumgait)

Ulvi Hasanli ’06 (Sheki), Vugar Qarayev ‘08

English Teaching Project for Disabled Youth

Kamran Aliyev ’04 has initiated a project together with the AzETA (Azerbaijan English Teachers Association) a project where he, Shenay Huseynova ’08 and Fahriya Guliyeva ’06 teach English for 20 disabled youth aged from 18 to 35. The teaching curriculum is twice a week: Wednesday and Saturday. The project when it started was supported by FLEX Alumni Coordinator and after several discussion with the present Coordinator Kamran decided to start this and with the support of the former FLEX Recruitment Assistant Chimnaz Aliyeva (who is an active member if the society and is working together with Women’s Bar Association Azerbaijan). Kamran is doing a great job teaching disabled. As Kamran reported the project is going great and disabled youth is feeling that someone cares about their situation in the society.

“American Smile” Project by Rustam Yusufov ‘09

March 6

FLEX Alumnus Rustam Yusufov ‘09 has organized a project called American Smile in his workplace. The project took place in ECIC (English Teaching Center). During this project students have shown their speaking, reading, listening skills and also actor and singing abilities. One of the goals was to show students who have never been abroad what kind of games, activities and events they can take part in, and lead in the future. The purpose of the project was to show that English learning can be fun and it is not necessarily boring classes; interactive way of learning is more effective for students rather than traditional approaches. There were 12 participants who are regular students of the center. There were 4 judges to evaluate their performance in different aspects: Amy Petersen (Country Director at ACCELS), Aytac Pashayeva (FLEX Coordinator for Azerbaijan), Tebrize Aloyeva (Head of the ECIC) and Mehriban Aliyeva (Teacher at ECIC).

“Young Vision” Trip to Zagatala

April 2-3

Subhi Ismayilzada ’09 and Raisa Alakbarova ‘09 have traveled to Zagatala from April 2^nd to April 3^rd for Young Vision Project. Together with UGRAD Alumni Olga Bregvadze and Ruslan Asadov ’05 (FLEX & UGRAD Alumnus). 23 students were present at the presentation in Danachi village in Zagatala and around 20 students, 15 at the city of Zagatala, and 4 in the village of Jar. The trip was very successful and alumni shared their vision and information with students and kids from the region of Zagatala.

Leyla Aslanova
FLEX Alumni Coordinator
flexalumni@americancouncils.az