The two-week tennis festival in the southern capital of Kazakhstan has ended. There were enough beautiful games, offensive defeats with broken rackets and balls flying away into the distance, and vivid emotions expressed by the participants of the Beeline Open Challenger 80 Almaty and Beeline Business Challenger 80 Almaty tournaments, the KTF press service sums up.
Dutchman Jesper De Jong and Chilean Marcelo Tomas Barrios Vera met in the final match of Beeline Business Challenger 80 Almaty. For 21-year-old Jesper, Almaty has become a lucky city: this final was the first on the Challengers in his singles career, and a week earlier he celebrated a doubles victory here with Ukrainian Vitaliy Sachko. The rising star of the Dutch tennis is currently ranked 204th in the world rating.
For the 23-year-old Chilean, Almaty is a familiar city. In 2019, he lost here in the second round. Today – lost in the decisive battle. De Jong played aggressively from the first seconds of the match, immediately took two serves from the opponent and completed the first set in his favour – 6:1. The scenario did not change in the second game – the representative of the country of tulips continued to press and play without mistakes. He was as concentrated as possible and confidently brought the meeting to victory. In the course of the game, the Chilean had no single break point. The final’s result: 6:1, 6:2.
“I am incredibly happy about my victory! Almaty will become a special city for me. My path to the title was long, because I started the draw with qualification. My mother was the first who congratulated me, she watched the match online. I thank my coach, who believed in me,” – Jesper said after the awarding ceremony.
In doubles, the victory was celebrated by Ukrainians Vladyslav Manafov / Vitaliy Sachko, who outplayed Frenchman Corentin Denolly and Spaniard Adrian Menendez – 6:1, 6:4.
Taking into account the increased sanitary and epidemiological measures, the games were held without spectators and the significance of TV broadcasts was of particular importance. All matches could be seen live on the website of the Kazakhstan Tennis Federation – WWW.KTF.KZ. The tournaments were shown by TV channels: in Kazakhstan – Qazsport and Insport, in Russia – TV and radio company “Start”, in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus – TV channels Sport 1 and Sport 2, in Uzbekistan – TV channel UzSport, in Belarus – Belarus-5.
General sponsor of the tournaments is Beeline.
Official partners – Kazzinc, Samruk Kazyna, Aqua Rossa, BMW Kazakhstan.
Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation is launching a programme “Academy of Leadership” in cooperation with the akimats of the Turkestan Oblast and the city of Shymkent. The goal of this programme is support and development of leader’s qualities in schoolchildren of grades 5-11 and teaching them sought-after skills that are not taught at school.
Communication skills, public speaking, planning and time management, self-presentation and development of self-confidence – all these will be taught to children in their classes under the “Academy of Leadership” programme.
First students to start classes in the “Academy of Leadership” will be pupils of grades 5-11 from the cities of Shymkent and Turkestan, and the Turkestan Oblast, and these are over 15,000 children. Within next five years the programme will cover Zhambyl, Kyzylorda, Atyrau, Mangistau, West Kazakhstan, Aktobe and Almaty Oblasts, and the total budget of the programme will be 5 million US dollars.
“Young leaders with civic engagement and contemporary mindset are a call of the times. Therefore, it is very important to bring up strong leaders amongst the modern youth so that the rising generation could have a competitive advantage in the framework of globalisation”, said Umirzak Shukeyev, Akim of the Turkestan Oblast.
Schoolchildren will learn to effectively use skills of communication, critical thinking, public speaking and negotiating. Plans include extracurricular activities, monthly meetings, master classes, leadership training sessions with participation of well-known figures and annual conferences with awards for the best students.
Young successful Kazakhstanis – Ali Okapov, Mezzo group and Dana Akilbekova – supported the idea of this programme and told why it’s important to develop leadership skills:
“We are eagerly waiting for the beginning of the academic year when guys will start their classes in the “Academy of Leadership”. This is a comprehensive programme, thanks to which in several years we will form among the youth a sustainable pool of civic-minded leaders who will be able to expose themselves brighter, manifest themselves and show their talents not only to Kazakhstan but to the whole world”, said Marat Aitmagambetov, Director of Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation.
Tennis players from Kazakhstan Alexander Bublik and Andrey Golubev made it to the Roland-Garros final in doubles. In the semi-final, they outplayed Spaniards Pablo Andujar and Pedro Martinez 1:6, 6:4, 6:4.
Tennis players from Kazakhstan Alexander Bublik and Andrey Golubev became finalists of the Roland-Garros final in doubles.
In the semi-final, Bublik and Golubev outplayed Spaniards Pablo Andujar and Pedro Martinez. Everything was decided in the third game, the match ended with a score of 1: 6, 6: 4, 6: 4 in favor of the athletes from Kazakhstan.
Bublik and Golubev fired aces eight times, and their rivals did not complete a single ace. The Kazakhstanis made two double mistakes, the Spaniards had four. The winners showed one hundred percent realisation of break points: two out of two. Their rivals managed to take opponent’s serve three times out of six opportunities.
Bulat Utemuratov’s Charity Foundation allocated 1 million tenge to each family left homeless after the forest fire around Ridder town in the East Kazakhstan Oblast. More details of the “Aid Card” project for victims of natural and man-made disasters, and of other social and charitable initiatives, were given by the Foundation Director, Marat Aitmagambetov.
– Marat Temirgaliyevich, could you please tell us in more detail what the “Aid Card” project is and who is eligible to recourse to it.
– It is a joint charitable project of Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation, the Red Crescent and ForteBank that has been implemented since 2018. During this time, assistance was rendered to victims of natural and man-made disasters for a total amount of more than 350 million tenge. Assistance is provided mainly to victims of floods, but there was also an experience in emergency response after the explosions at the ammunition depot in Arys.
“Aid Card” project was launched in 2018
This year, having found out about the fire occurred in Ridder our team couldn’t step aside and decided to immediately look for ways to support those who were in trouble. And, for the aid to be timely and appropriate, we decided to provide financial support in the amount of 1 million tenge to each family left without a roof over their heads. To our deepest regret, the fire was not without casualties. I express my deep condolences to the family and friends of the perished Galina Filaretovna Spivakova.
Each of the thirty affected families received a bank card of 1 million tenge par value, and the total amount of aid was 30 million tenge.
– Will the implementation of the “Autism. One world for all” programme continue this year?
– Sure. This is our flagship programme to support children with autistic spectrum disorders and their parents. Nine Assyl Miras autism centres were opened within the frameworks of this programme in the cities of Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Kyzylorda, Ust-Kamenogorsk, Aktobe, Uralsk, Shymkent, Petropavlovsk and Pavlodar. The most recent centre was opened last December in Pavlodar.
Opening of the Assyl Miras centre in Pavlodar
Doors of our Centres are open for all parents and children every day, here our specialists, trained in the most advanced techniques, will help to diagnose ASD absolutely free of charge and in case of revealing the disorder a child will be enrolled to the relevant programme to develop the required skills. All our centres give classes in accordance with American technologies developed by the University of California and the Marcus Autism Centre in Atlanta. These technologies have proved their effectiveness. Every child who took or is taking classes in our centres show progress in their development.
– How do they differ from the special needs centres set up by the state?
– We understood that ASD children were treated in the old way, as was the practice back in the Soviet Union. We decided to refuse from such approaches and recourse to the international experience. Our “Autism. One world for all” programme is based on science-proved techniques which are widely adopted in the USA and Europe.
The standards of work of state rehabilitation offices in Kazakhstan do not coincide with the system adopted by Assyl Miras. For example, in our centres, a lesson with a child lasts 60 minutes, and in the state rehabilitation office – only 25-40 minutes, which is not enough for efficient work with a child. Also, the specialist’s schedule in the state programme does not include hours of work with parents and supervision of the child after the programme completion. For these reasons, since mid-2020, we have been striving for the legislative definition of the Assyl Miras centres as a separate type of special educational organization. Such an order was signed recently, and we are very happy about that. Now our centres, opened in partnership with akimats in the cities of Nur-Sultan, Shymkent, Petropavlovsk and Pavlodar, have received the status of “Centres for the support of children with autism (ASD)”. This means that we will be able to implement the “Autism. One world for all” programme in these centres to the full extent and not contradicting with the state programme.
We are also starting transfer of the remaining centres into the public management in the format of municipal public institutions (MPI). At this, we will preserve the programme effectiveness, will continue to monitor the process of training of specialists and their use of best practices.
We are still planning to open new centres. The Foundation will continue cooperation with regional akimats in this direction, reserving training, including that provided by foreign experts, and full equipment of the centres for ourselves.
– What other charity projects are supported by Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation?
– This year Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation supported the “El tiregi – Elbasy” campaign arranged by the Halyk Charity Foundation. What is its essence? It is assistance to low-income multi-child families and families upbringing special needs children. Our Foundation formed 4,000 food baskets and delivered them to residents of the most densely populated cities of the country: Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Shymkent, Kyzylorda.
This is a campaign run by the Halyk Foundation, we decided to back it and to provide support to families that found themselves in a difficult life situation amidst the pandemic and quarantine restrictions. At present, more than ever, our society should stick together and help those who is in the most need because only doing so we will be able to overcome all hardships.
– There are tens of charitable foundations in Kazakhstan, but projects implemented by Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation differ from them. Do you choose such projects purposefully, in order not to replicate?
– There are, indeed, many foundations, they are different, work at various levels – at the levels of cities, regions, country. Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation works at the national level, on the nationwide scale, and implemented social projects are designed first of all for the vulnerable groups of population, including children, teenagers, youth. The Foundation’s mission is formulated as to make Kazakhstan a better place to live today and tomorrow. But the core message of its founder is that the Foundation does not repeat those initiatives and projects that are already being implemented and supported by the state.
