KAZAKHSTAN
Today, along the newly revived Silk Road, REI builds capacity for peace, education and economic development.
The Silk Road has always been a place where worlds meet - where ideas, cultures and opportunities flow from one region to another. Today, Central Asia is stepping into a new chapter of that legacy. At the crossroads of Asia, Europe and the Middle East, the five republics that emerged after the Soviet era are eager to write a story of growth, connection and progress.
REI returned to Central Asia in late 2019, picking up a story that began in 1992 when we first invested in building local leaders who would help shape the region’s future. Since then, our team has grown in Kazakhstan - where we partner with universities and schools to deliver meaningful training, coaching and leadership support. Our aim is simple: to walk alongside communities as they develop the people who will shape tomorrow’s Kazakhstan.
“Welcome to the end of the world!” grinned our host, Serik Abilov, as he greeted us at the airport. “All planes that arrive here turn around and go back where they came from, because there is nowhere to continue on to!”
The small city of Oskemen may indeed be located in eastern Kazakhstan’s rugged borderlands with Russia and China, but it didn’t feel remote to us. For several years now, REI has been cultivating friendships and academic ties here at the Kazakh American Free University (KAFU).
Open for Growth and New Opportunities
REI in Central Asia is being asked for a steady stream of visiting faculty to come to KAFU, for example. They are also asking us to place long-term resident faculty at the university, similar to what REI has done at SIUT (Samarkand Internationa University of Technology in Uzbekistan) over the past two years. We’re also getting requests to enter into partnerships with other universities and institutions, but we lack the personnel capacity to answer every request.
