When we talk about Youth, these words come to mind - creative, new, not standard, interesting. These words also fit the description of the first ever CAYFWater summer school at Issyk-kul lake, which took place from 26th June to 1st July 2017.

Beautiful nature and creative workshops allowed participants to switch off from everyday chores and dive into the learning process. Young people from all over Central Asia were taught to plan and embody different projects in water related areas. The entire group was divided into smaller teams and each team had to think through an issue they would be interested to work with. For example, different seminars in schools and universities, group gathering to clean different water objects, information brochures, field trips to various water related constructions, etc. Each team had an opportunity to write the budget and plan every step of their project. Later they presented the project they had worked on to the entire group and received a working budget so they could bring those projects to life. Thereby, all they learnt wasn’t just a good theory, but a real work which they could implement each at their own place.

To teach the seminars, a team from the “Dragon Dreaming” company was invited. They challenged the participants not only to write the project point by point, but to dream bigger, find their place in the team and do what they are best at.

Beside all of that, it is known how big a role good teamwork plays, so we spent some amount of the time doing different teambuilding activities.

Most of the projects developed during the CAYFWater summer school were appointed to execute during the Autumn of 2017 and we are excited to hear the reports from the young participants. We also hope that such a school will become an annual event that will inspire and empower many young people across Central Asia.