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With the return of the 2022 generation, there are now 30,174 alumni in the FLEX alumni family! Of these, 25 are currently serving as Alumni Coordinators and 217 as City and University Representatives! 


From January to November 2022, alumni reported organizing 2,387 activities in more than 250 communities in 25 countries, engaging 6,934 alumni and 56,468 others. With these activities, alumni addressed needs in their communities and raised awareness about issues that matter to them. Alumni also reported 1,491 successes, from starting new businesses to winning prestigious awards. Continuing reading the newsletter to learn about some recently reported activities and successes! 

 

It was a It was a dynamic year on social media, too! FLEX Alumni Programs grew to 7,824 followers on Instagram, 1,997 followers on Twitter, and 17,904 followers on Facebook. The year’s most popular post? Highlighting Gunel Isakova '08 and her effort to help those in need during the pandemic, this post received the most engagement across platforms!

Whether online or in person, FLEX alumni showed throughout the year what it means to be a FLEXer – your FLEXperience doesn’t end when you return to your home country; instead, the journey is just beginning!  

 

Thank you all for being a part of the #FLEXFamily. We can’t wait to see what the FLEX alumni community accomplishes in 2023! 

Are you proud of a recent success and want to share it with the world? Share your accomplishments on social media and use the hashtag #FLEXAlumni and tag the FLEX Alumni Program for a chance to be featured on the monthly newsletter or FLEX Alumni Program social media accounts! Read below for some recent FLEX alumni achievements!


Iga Karasińska '18: "On November 23, I helped coordinate the Our Future Forum with Our Future Foundation and other amazing youth organizations from all over Poland. We brought more than 1000 people to the Palace of Culture and Science to talk about the most pressing issues of our contemporary world, exchange our views, and talk about how we, as young people, can more actively engage in decision-making processes. As a part of the Important Matters Foundation, I am proud to say that we were a part of it!"


Iryna Bilohorka ’17: "I recently started working as a Climate Analyst for HXE Partners. HXE Partners is a New York-based sustainability consultancy. I'm especially proud of this achievement because I didn't have the required years of experience for this job. I believe that my internship at TeraWatt Infrastructure (a company that provides chargers to electric cars) helped me get my dream job."


Tamuna Gegelashvili ’20: "At the end of July, I was promoted to Projects Assistant from being an intern at Social Enterprise Alliance (SEA). For the first time, I took responsibility for a project about social entrepreneurship. The project - "Social Entrepreneurs for Tourism (SET)" - was founded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia and implemented by the Social Enterprises Alliance, Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia, and Regional Sustainable Development Institute."

Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is the largest youth service and civic action event in the world and the only one that celebrates and builds the capacity of all youth to help our communities and democracy thrive by working together for the common good.


In celebration of GYSD, FLEX alumni are eligible to apply for matching grants of up to $500 to address an issue in their local community in one of six areas: health, education, environment, hunger, community -building, and human rights. Activities funded by these grants should take place on or around GYSD Weekend 2023, April 28-30!


Applications will be open from November 28 to December 27! See below for examples of past projects. Click on the photos below to read about some past GYSD projects.

The 2023 Iacocca Global Village for Future Leaders application is now open! All FLEX alumni are eligible to apply for a tuition scholarship for this 5-week program, which will be held in the United States in the summer of 2023. Apply here by January 15!

The Iacocca Global Village experience is uniquely designed to meet the needs of future leaders, bringing young professionals, entrepreneurs, and advanced university students from every continent to live and work together in an intensive and extremely diverse learning community. In the Village, participants work in cross-cultural teams on real leadership challenges for organizations across the globe, develop their personal leadership vision and plan, and build a lifelong network of global colleagues, mentors, and friends. Together, you will create new visions for what leadership means in the future.

Tinatin Khasia ’10: Creating the FLEX Appreciation Day 2022 Card

It was not until her exchange year in the U.S. that Tinatin Khasia ’10 discovered her passion for art. Twelve years later, FLEX alumni from around the world wrote beautiful FLEX Appreciation Day messages on cards designed by Tinatin for members of their host communities. Read her story here! Read below to see how you can become the next FLEX Day artist!

Uniting Alumni to Share Knowledge and Experience

From managing perfectionism to podcasting, from web development to youth civic engagement, it is hard to imagine an area where there is no specialist among FLEX alumni. That was the mindset of Diana Shalashna ’18, Liudmyla Pustovit ’11, and Kyrylo Beskorovaynyy ’11 when they launched the USG Learning series. Read their story here!

Alumnae Find Ways to Support Ukrainian Refugees in the Czech Republic

Alumnae Liliia Loboda ’22 from Ukraine and Elnaz Babayeva ’10 from Kazakhstan, who are currently living in the Czech Republic, stood at the forefront of all the Czech-based FLEX alumni initiatives to help Ukrainian refugees receive supplies and integrate into the community. Read more here!

Help us identify the next FLEX Appreciation Day Card artist!

The time for choosing the next artist for the FLEX Appreciation Day card is right around the corner. Please fill out the FLEX Artists registration survey if you are interested in having your art featured on next year’s FLEX Appreciation Day card! 

The holidays are approaching, and Christmas is just around the corner! Check out this photo of past City Representative Sezin Zhenishbekova '15 celebrating Christmas with English Club students at the American Corner in Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, on Christmas Day in 2015. We wish the FLEX alumni happy holidays! We can't wait to see what the new year holds for the FLEX alumni community. See you next year!

The Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) Program is a United States Department of State-sponsored program for secondary school students from Armenia, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine. The program provides merit-based scholarships for students to travel to the United States, live with a host family, and attend a U.S. high school for a full academic year. Learn more at www.discoverflex.org.

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