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How Students Can Get Involved in Global Events
Rafis Abazov
Updated Aug 15, 2024Save
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Recently my students and I were watching a documentary about the Olympic movement. At the grand opening ceremony of the games, where world leaders and Olympic Committee members were greeting premier Olympians from around the world, we noticed a group of young people among the dignitaries. The question arose: how did they manage to get there? Here is how they went about it, and how you can also get involved in major local and global events…
Search for volunteering opportunities
There are many large events in the rapidly globalizing world organized by various localities – cities, provinces and states. They are competing with each other for the right to host global events for many reasons – from stimulating economic growth to city/country branding in order to attract businesses, investment and tourists.
This in turn provides great opportunities for students not only to participate in more traditional volunteering opportunities, but also to be involved in the early stages of the preparation of the official bidding packages along with the organizing committee teams.
For example, many of my students in the MDP/Global Classroom program at Al Farabi Kazakh National University contributed to Almaty city’s bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. Almaty emerged as a finalist together with a very strong competitor – Beijing, the capital of China – at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. For Almaty, a city of about 1.6 million people (around 15 times smaller than Beijing), the youth contribution and collaboration has been very welcome and important in many ways. The involvement of these young people ranged from doing background research on best practices around the world to helping design reports; from brainstorming innovative ideas to essay competitions on why Almaty city should host the Winter Olympics.
Seek out ways to get involved locally
From the experience of my students I know that one of the challenges of getting involved in large and exciting local projects is the lack of proper information and communication.
It is not that students do not want to be involved or that municipalities do not need any help. The problem is that unlike big national governments or large international organizations, local governments very often do not have a big budget for public relations or advertising their projects and future plans.
Therefore, it is crucial for students to find proper channels of communication with local authorities, especially in discussing their strategic plans or long-term visions. For example, it took almost two years for the Almaty municipality to prepare its bid for the Winter Olympics, and during this time there were many updates and changes in the bid proposal. This was a huge job involving a multidisciplinary approach and the need for expertise in many areas – from international negotiations and relations to city infrastructure planning and green economy initiatives. Of course, the multi-disciplinary expertise which students and faculty were able provide to make Almaty a veritable “Smart City” able to host the Winter Olympic Games, was simply invaluable.
Play to your own strengths
The secret of success in being involved in such prestigious global projects at the local level is to offer the right set of skills. It is not like the whole mayor’s office is simply sitting there waiting for students to arrive. These offices have, of course, their own experience in preparing projects and reports and they have their own pool of internal experts.
Therefore, it is important to identify fields and areas where they might need help and expertise, and find the right people to approach for assistance. For example, the strength which my students could offer to the mayor’s office was their ability to create a multi-lingual and multi-disciplinary team able to work on the most challenging issues and study best practices from around the world.
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Research and plan in advance
Creative students always find creative ways to be involved in innovative projects. There are several important aspects here. One is to search for opportunities in advance, starting from your very first days at college or university, or even before starting your studies, in order to be in the right place at the right time. Second is to be flexible and search for potential volunteering opportunities around you; even if your city is not involved in any global events or projects, an adjacent city or state very well might. Third is to be very diplomatic in offering your expertise. And fourth is: create your team, and work as a team.
With all this in place, who knows what dreams may come true? Perhaps my students will be able to stand at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics Games in Almaty (if it is awarded to that city) – or simply watch the games on TV with proud thoughts that they were part of contributing to make this global event come about.
Dr Rafis Abazov is a visiting professor at Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan, where he also manages a joint program with Earth Institute of Columbia University (New York, USA). He has written 10 books, including The Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics (2007) and has regularly contributed op-eds to The New York Times. Mr Abazov enjoys collecting rare books on British exploration of Central Asia and reading travelogues on Central Asia and the Middle East by Eugene Schuyler, Vladimir Bartold and Lord George Curzon. He has also authored photo exhibitions about his trips to Central Asian republics, Turkey and Afghanistan.
Contact info: Office 1400 Rectorat, 71 Al Farabi Ave., Al Farabi KazNU, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
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