A lecture on “Active Citizenship. Civil Rights” was organised in Bishkek for the members of the Leader Youth Club at the BHU with participation of 40 students.
The Leader Youth Club brings together around 300 students throughout Kyrgyzstan. The club members are students of all academic levels, various departments and majors of the following universities: KNU, KRSU, KTU Manas, KSLA, KTMU, BHU, universities of Naryn, Jalal-Abad, Osh and other.
The speaker of the lecture was Burul Usmanalieva, a political analyst, master of international relations and civil rights activist.
At the beginning of the lecture, students were actively sharing their opinions and their visions of the concept “citizen activism”. Afterwards, the speaker explained in simple words and through examples what it was to be a civil rights activist and what rights people had, and she also told the students how to exercise their rights and, most importantly, to exercise them within the law in order to change the society for better.
The students were interested in the rallies, whether they were legitimate and whether they were proper.
“Every person has a natural right to declare his/her discontent or that he/she or his/her relatives have become the victims of injustice caused by the authorities, judges, etc., but it still has to be within the law. Your task is to understand this aspect since you are people with active citizenship,” Burul Usmanalieva said.
The lecturer told the students about the most prominent civil rights activists in Kyrgyzstan, and gave examples of the world personalities that changed the world for better at their time. Burul’s presentation contained the sayings of such famous persons as Martin Luther Kind, Mahatma Gandhi, Margaret Mead and others. According to students, the presentation prepared by Burul encouraged them to continue their activities of developing citizen activism through the Leader Youth Club. Also, the students expressed their willingness to attend the lectures on this topic in future.
“The lecture was excellent. I learned many interesting things about the civil law, and, most importantly, I improved my knowledge about my civil rights and obligations. I’d also like to note the public speaking skills of Burul Usmanalieva and her well-prepared presentation that was very interesting since the lecturer managed to convey information in a proper way,” Isabekova Gulshat, member of the Leader Youth Club, shared her opinion.
Link on power point presentation: презентация “Гражданский активизм”