BOTA Foundation 2010 Annual Report - IREX

VI. BOTA and Positive Youth
Youth aged 15 – 24 make up a staggering 27% of the population of Kazakhstan. With approximately
321,268 children living in poverty, youth from poor families suffer most due to a lack of investment in
vocation or higher education opportunity and/or the skills necessary to secure a financial livelihood.
Marginalized and impoverished youth are rarely empowered to participate in the development of
their communities or offered the mechanisms for civic engagement. Their lack of educational opportunity
and life-skills threatens their futures as productive and active members of Kazakhstani society.
As with all of its programs, the BOTA Foundation has undertaken both individual and communitylevel
interventions to provide direct assistance to impoverished youth and strengthen the capacity
of communities to provide sustainable youth-development services. As the first scholarship program
in Kazakhstan to target impoverished youth, BOTA’s Tuition Assistance Program provided three- and
four-year higher education grants to 325 students in 2009 and 2010 affording them a unique opportunity
to break the cycle of chronic, intergenerational poverty. Tuition assistance grants also covered
costs of room and board, travel and educational materials for youth who would otherwise not have
the opportunity to learn and succeed in adulthood. The BOTA staff’s individual assistance and support
to TAP scholars, combined with semi-annual trainings on skill development, have demonstrated
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