It’s less than a week left until the end of the first stage of “Kazakhstan’s 100 new faces” project. If anybody is still not aware of what is the project about and how it can affect the life of an average citizen of Kazakhstan, then one should hurry up to catch the leaving train.
So, starting from the very beginning… The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mr. Nazarbayev announced in his program article «The Course towards Future: Modernization of Public Conscience» the launching of the project “Kazakhstan’s 100 new faces”. Its aims are, first, to show the citizens the real faces of people who create modern Kazakhstan with their intellect, arms and talent; second, to create a new multimedia platform for the informational support and popularization of our outstanding fellow-countrymen.
The whole procedure of the project is formed of two stages. The first one, ongoing now from the beginning of July 2017 until 15 September 2017, envisages the collection of applications of each and every person willing to tell his or her stories about themselves, their friends, relatives or any other person. There are no concrete criteria about applying for this first stage.
Actually, the lack of the strict criteria is one of the usual reasons of criticism towards the project. However, the project operators explain that the only thing that matters is that a person should have made a positive difference for the country. The size of this difference does not matter: it can be saving a life of one person or providing the job places for a small village residents, or a benefit for the whole country. Not creating strict limits was actually an aim of the project managers. They believe that this encourages people to tell them as much stories as possible without thinking of whether the story will be eligible for publication or not. It helps to receive and collect a magnificent amount of information about the lives of the people all over the country. Without that, we would not have been aware of, for example, owners of small businesses who provide free food to the poor, or any other people making the world around them a better place to live in.
At this first stage, almost all the stories sent to the website of www.100esim.el.kz are published there with minor alterations. At the present time, the number of stories published is around 1500. Till the end of the stage the number is going to increase to 2000. As mentioned before, the stage is finishing on 15 September. After that, on the second stage, the experts group is joining the project with an aim to analyse all the received information and choose from those 2000 people 100 heroes who will be named as Kazakhstan’s new faces.
Unfortunately, not all the sent stories can be published on the website. As Oleg Ryabchenko, the editor-in-chief of EL.KZ portal that directly operates the project on the first stage, told in his interview to Central Asia Monitor, there is a number of problems that they face while processing the applications. The first problem arises with the people who believe that mentioning their nationality, gender, age or profession is enough for the story to be considered outstanding. It can happen that these people simply do not understand the meaning of the project. In the cases like this the managers have to call a person and try to receive some proof of the prominent background of the character. However, usually these calls end with the leaving of the applications without publication.
Another problem happens with the people who prefer to live an isolated life or simply are too modest to leave their stories for the common view. This is possible when one is sending an application with a story of another person, leaving his or her contacts but not telling enough details. The project manager calls the character in order to receive more information, but he or she appears not to know that their story is being published somewhere. In these situations, people can ask to delete the record, and the manager cannot do anything to prevent this, as the participation is of one’s own free will. For preventing the situations like that the project operators ask to notify the person they are telling about and receive their approval to do so.
One more problem happening during the whole first stage of the project is a situation with people who are already wide popular. These are Olympic sport champions like Alexander Vinokurov, Kanat Islam or Serik Sapiyev; popular singers like Dimash Kudaibergenov; successful businessmen like Aidyn Rakhimbayev and many others. People think of them as their idols and keep sending their stories to the website without understanding that the project is about not those of us who are already wide-known and recognisable, but about those who are actually new, who make difference in their small villages or societies, those who work every day just like all the others do, and live just like the others, however making the world a better place. The project’s aim is to direct the projector towards their faces and demonstrate the others that anyone can achieve something important in their lives just by working hard and being a better version of themselves.
A good example of such a person is Gulmira Abdrasheva whose story is published on the project’s website in the category “Society”. Gulmira is a founder of the volunteers’ movement called “Kind Souls Club”. It is basically a platform where people seeking for help meet those who can provide that needed help. The urges can be absolutely different: from the need to blood transfusion to the help with little children left home alone while their mother is at hospital. The Club does not work with the money collection, all the help is conducted directly to the person in need. Sometimes they run campaigns like sales of clothes or auctions with some valuable goods. All the work is supervised by Gulmira what makes her a perfect example of a person who can be called a new role model for modern Kazakhstani citizens.
To sum up, we would like to invite you to share the stories of people who motivate you and who you think deserve to be shortlisted as one of Kazakhstan’s 100 new faces. It may be a family member, a colleague, a friend, a neighbour, someone who you only heard about or even you personally.