AUCA students and alumni went to the 2016 Korea-Central Asia Youth Model Summit, South Korea

August 15, 2016

Between July 25 and 30, the 2016 Korea-Central Asia Youth Model Summit was held at Ajou University in Suwon, South Korea. This year, the model summit was attended by more than 50 participants from all the Central Asian countries, Mongolia, Sakha Republic (Yakutia), and South Korea.

Nurzhan Kadyrkulova, Shoola Dzhumaeva, Nazim Ibraimov and Zhanyl Sultanova, current students and recent alumni of the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), went to Korea to participate in the five-day conference. The summit program included presentations from each country delegation, lectures, country and committee meetings, cultural performance, and the final model summit itself.

Every day during the summit, participants discussed different topics in groups. Their collaboration yielded final statements on each topic, which were submitted and presented for all participants and the committee.

Besides the educational portion of the conference, cultural tours were organized to the Korean Folk Village, where a guide told the participants about traditional Korean life and culture.

“This summit was the perfect opportunity for me to discover a new country with a unique culture and modern infrastructure. During the whole conference, we were working with absolutely different people from different background and with different worldviews. And I think these kinds of multicultural exchanges of ideas are very helpful to raise one’s mind and to you’re your potential as a human being. It was my first time participating in this kind of event, and it gave me wonderful memories about my time spent in Korea,” said Nurzhan Kadyrkulova, one of the delegates from Kyrgyzstan and a 2015 AUCA alumna.

Each day, delegates learned something new about their own countries and South Korea. The delegates discussed the cooperation between the Central Asian countries, Mongolia, Sakha Republic and Korea in the areas of economy, natural resources and culture.

“It was a big challenge for all the delegates, because all of us were the youth representatives of our countries. Each of us wanted to know something more about each other as well as represent the best sides of our own countries. But nevertheless, we needed to talk about both the strong and weak parts, because, through open debate, we were trying to find ways to cooperate with other countries’ delegates like at a real international summit,” – Nurzhan says.

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