What Exactly Does Interlink Do? - Teacher Impact

Posted by Zina Omarova, English Program Manager

The following is a full description of the Teacher IMPACT Program. Please click on the image to preview in a larger size.

The People Behind Interlink - Marina

Posted by Marina Tsoy, Office Manager

At 28 years old I have done a lot in my life. I graduated from the Institute of Language & Translation in Almaty in 2000. My specialty is translation and I graduated with honors. During my first year at university I met my husband Yura. We’ve been married for 10 years and we have two wonderful children: my daughter, Sasha, is 7 and my son, Roma, is 4. Yura is the pastor of the local Methodist church.

In June I will have worked for IRI for 4 years. I started out as a receptionist and was promoted to Office Manager. I really enjoy my work and the people I work with. There is a lot of variety and I am able to apply my skills and abilities to my work. It is a pleasure for me to be a part of Interlink. I am glad that I can help this organization achieve its goals.

I enjoy spending time with people. I value my family and friends. My desire is to fulfill what God has for me to do. In future I would like to be a Marriage and Family counselor.

An Article Written by Savva Boarding School

Posted by Sara Coggins, Kids Connection Manager

The following is an article written to a local newspaper about our work. It was written by the Head Caregiver of Savva Boarding School.


The way of love, kindness and mercy

Every child in our house dreams about a little bit of happiness, not only for himself, but for everyone who lives with him. As a result, just one smile can cause them to snuggle up to you and take your hand, allowing them to feel happy. As adults we understand this and try to organize parties for our children and invite people who really love them and can give their warmth to our children.

Our American friends Sara and Ken have become frequent guests at our house. They come every month to celebrate our children’s birthdays. I think these lines in a poem were written about them:

They are glad to give theirs hearts warmth
For freezing people whose faces touch the ground
They don’t need other thanks
Than the children’s happy faces around

Sara and Ken always try to make parties interesting with fun games, gifts, and cake. Our children look forward to them! When Sara comes, she brings a ball and plays football with the children. Ken also likes to play active games with kids. Even when the weather is bad they know how to cheer up the children. Different games and activities are always prepared for our children.

After playing games, the children who celebrate their birthdays change their clothes and go to the “Hozyayushka” (a room of hospitality), where a lot of surprises are prepared for them. The “Hozyayushka” is a room that is decorated with a Cheburashka (a monkey like animal with big ears) in the center of the wall. The children sit down at tables that are covered with white table cloths and are full of different sweets and drinks. The children’s favorite dish is Sara’s cake, which she cooks for Savva’s orphanage children.

Children get congratulated, congratulate each other, sing songs, dance, and play different games. They like adults playing with them like little children. Every child smiles. Then, as if they were part of a fairy tale presents appear. Every child can choose their own presents. It is so fun! You should see their faces when they choose gifts. After the party children take pictures with the adults and their friends. Then they wait for Sara and Ken to come and bring their photos. Every child has his own album which is full of photos for him to keep.

Of course our American friends have done more for us and for our children. Thanks to them and Interlink Resources, Inc. we have new doors and floors in our rooms. They helped us to install a new water tower. They also presented sports equipment for boxing, a music center, and a Volkswagen Passat. Our American friends sponsored our heating system’s maintenance. Also, thanks to their help our children appeared in concert wearing new dance and carnival costumes.

Every child received his own gift for New Years from our American friends. These gifts contained sweets and stuffed animals which show love and care for these children. Children don't only receive gifts for birthdays. Sara and Ken gave each group different lego sets, dolls for girls, games, soft toys, and other New Years gifts.

These people unselfishly help our children. They sincerely show compassion to these children and they know that they do great work- to protect children from troubles.

People in our “Warm house” thank you for any help: as children grow they need the advice of adults, their strong hands, their hearts, and their kind words.

What Exactly Does Interlink Do? - Business

Posted by Beth Turnock, Interim Director

Over the years the business department has evolved into what it is today. Early on the business department provided training to local people on how to start a business using ethical business principles. Economically Kazakhstan is growing quickly and there are many new business opportunities for local people and foreign investors. One of the challenges we face is to promote a more ethical business model since there is often a thread of corruption that weaves itself through most all business ventures. As we hear the president's commitment to curtail the corruption it is our hope that we will see positive changes in this area.

Some of our business initiatives with a lasting impact include assisting with the start-up of the Interlingua English School and a woodworking shop at a local orphanage. This woodworking shop has allowed the youth to learn a valuable skill, they are able to make furniture for their orphanage and contract for other jobs for schools and orphanages. More recently the business department has shifted focus on supporting the work of the Youth Impact program. We are in the process of developing curriculum for youth on how to start their own businesses and completing curriculum on employment skills. In addition to this we are looking at starting a for-profit business here in order to provide employment training for youth as well as make a profit which can go back into supporting our overall work. We are excited to see how the business
department will grow in the next few years and give back to the community.

Tickles, Treats, Triumph, and Serious Talks

Posted by Ember Mumaw, Intern








































This past weekend saw the Kids Connection team celebrating birthdays with four boys from Saramoldeava. The two birthday kids and friends of their choosing are treated to pizza, a movie, chocolate cake, and some games. Each month we do this. It’s a little different with its own flavor depending on which children come. Highlights included a huge tickle fest with the two younger boys, Ember and Sara. The team tag method worked best and we called it a tie in the end! As for treats, we try to give the children meals they don’t often have, such as American style pizza and chocolate cake. This week Ken also pulled out some Twizzlers which the kids seemed to like, but our teammate Olya turned her nose up at. For one young man, Roman, the highlight of his time was perhaps besting Keekzhan at not just one, but three rounds of chess.

At the end of our time Olya, the Youth Impact Manager, and then Kiikzhan had conversations with both Roman and Vitalik who are graduating from the orphanage this May. Interlink can’t move mountains or make the impossible, possible, but we do try to help the children achieve their dreams. This can take a lot of time and conversations since in Kazakhstan orphanage children are not encouraged to have high dreams or hopes. Interlink hopes to work to overcome this lack of hope in the children by helping to find and open doors of possibility for them and to continually remind them of their unique worth, to foster their talents and gifting, and to guide them to make wise decisions.

The People Behind Interlink - Zina

Posted By: Zina Omarova, English Programs Manager

I am married and I have two children, a son and a daughter. My son is 28. He is married and works at the bank. My daughter is also married and has a 4 year-old son. She teaches English at the Kazakh-American University in Almaty. My husband teaches at the Kazak-Turkish University in Taraz. Before working for Interlink, I taught English to high school students for about 22 years. I was also the Vice Director of the English Department for many years.

I have been the Manager of English Programs at IRI since 2001. I did a lot of work with orphanage children programs and with medical programs. My main responsibilities are: promoting programs for English Language (EL) teachers; cooperating with Educational departments; organizing seminars and conferences.

This is the third year I am working with Heather Lewis on the teacher training program IMPACT (Innovative Methods and Practical Activities for Creative Teacher). This program is a teacher training program for village teachers of English. We are working in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, English teachers of Taraz, English training centers, and local educational institutions. The program has successfully been implemented in the Oblast for the past two years with over 150 teachers participating. The program objectives are to empower and equip teachers to apply up-to-date communicative techniques, to promote self-sufficiency and professional excellence.

At the request of the Taraz City Educational Department we started to train the city EL teachers using the IMPACT program. We organized a 3-day seminar on the 7 – 9 of February for about 35 teachers. The same teachers will participate in 3 more 3-day seminars in March, April and May. Those who successfully finish the course will get certificates of completion.

EL teachers like the seminars we organize for them and express their gratitude to the trainers and the organizers. They say that they really learn a lot of innovative methods and new practical activities.

English Teachers Conference

Posted by Zina Omarova, English Programs Manager

At the request of the Taraz City Educational Department we started to training course for Taraz City English language (EL) teachers using the IMPACT program. We organized a 3-day seminar on the 7 – 9 of February for about 35 teachers. Our main trainers Galina Polikhronidy, Marina Kirichenko and Irina Loshkova presented their workshops on the theme “Receptive Skill Techniques.” The same 35 city EL teachers will attend three more 3-day conferences in order to complete this version of the IMPACT program and get certificates. Our Educational institutions and EL teachers understand that traditional methods of teaching foreign languages here in Kazakhstan have been very helpful but fall short of equipping students for fluency. Our IMPACT program provides applying highly communicative methodologies. These teachers have paid for the privilege of participating in the IMPACT course. Previous training courses were provided by Interlink Resources free of charge.

Interlink Blog Series' Begin This Week

We would like to take this opportunity to introduce two new series' that will be appearing on our blog starting this week.

Every Wednesday we will publish a post in our series "The People Behind Interlink". Each week we will introduce you to one of the people that contributes to the work of Interlink both in Kazakhstan and the USA. We hope this will allow you to get to know us.

Every Friday we will publish a post in our series "What Exactly Does Interlink Do?" Each week we will introduce you to the work of one department from our offices in Kazakhstan. We hope this will allow you to better understand the work that we are doing to bless the people of Kazakhstan.

We will also continue to post news and activities along with these new series'.

One Meal a Day

In January we spent some time talking to the kids in the Youth Impact program about food pyramids. As we talked about healthy eating, we realized that many of the youth that we work with only eat one meal a day, usually consisting of potatoes or rice and maybe a little meat. See the Youth Impact January Newsletter to read more about what we are doing to help these youth get a more balanced diet.

Kids Connection Coordinator

Interlink Resources recently hired someone to fill the vacancy for Kids Connection Coordinator in Kazakhstan. Keekzhan began work last week and has already begun developing relationships with children at the orphanages. His main role will be to keep our information about each child in the Kids Connection program updated. He will also be responsible for making sure letters get translated and delivered to children and sponsors. He is great with children and will be a good role model, especially for the boys. They need a positive role model in their lives because most of the people that work with them are women. He is also good at details and will help us to keep up with our sponsors more efficiently. We are excited to have him as part of our team.

Savva Orphanage Visit

Last weekend was our monthly Savva Orphaange visit. We had a birthday party for 20 children, whose birthdays were in January. We played games and and gave out birthday gifts. In the evening, we went to each group delivering letters from sponsors. This visit, we collected about 100 letters from children to their sponsors and friends. If you would like to see some excerpts from some letters visit Sara's blog. The older children then watched a movie with us. These movies are chosen because they have good topics that the children can learn from. As we interact with the children, we have lots of opportunities to teach them life lessons that most children learn from their parents. You can see an example of this on Ember's Blog.