Stories of IREX

Located only 30km from the Chinese border, the Khabarovsk State Academy of Economics and Law (KSAEL) attracts many Chinese students pursuing higher education abroad. Seeing a lack of opportunities for meaningful interaction between Russian and Chinese students at KSAEL, Elvira Gayfullina (UGRAD 2007-2008) teamed up with fellow Debate Club members at her university to connect the two groups.

Knowledge is power. Let knowledge save lives.
- "Kyrgyzstan Fighting Against HIV/AIDS"

Before volunteering with the Minority AIDS Council of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, Muskie fellow Margarita Aksyonova knew the basics about HIV. But Margarita didn’t see the epidemic on a personal level until she started organizing events with support group leader Patricia Kelly, who has been living with HIV since 1985. “No matter how many movies or news stories you’ve watched about [people living with HIV/AIDS], it’s totally different from actually dealing with them on [a daily basis],” Margarita reflected.

Youth who are incarcerated are more likely to be incarcerated as adults.* Hoping to break the cycle, Muskie fellow Anna Andrianova teamed up with members of the West Texas A&M University Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) chapter to provide a positive influence and training in valuable life skills for youth at a local correctional facility.

Muskie fellow Ruslan Karabukaev and several of his MBA classmates at the Georgia Institute of Technology  spent their winter break volunteering in New Orleans with the Saint Bernard Project, which aims to help rebuild the lives of Hurricane Katrina survivors, family by family. Says Ruslan, “We spent an amazing week working from 9 to 4 rebuilding houses damaged by the flood and hurricane: putting in drywall, painting, and cleaning.

Access to legal assistance can have a dramatic impact on individuals in crisis, helping families keep their homes and avoid foreclosure, allowing victims of domestic violence to obtain protective orders, and ensuring that workers receive compensation promised by their employers. Andro Gigauri, a 2008 Muskie fellow from Georgia, learned more about the U.S.

From September 2 to 11, Aicholpon Jorupbekova, a 2004 Muskie alumna, organized therapeutic dance classes on the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan for 25 young people from Obereg, a rehabilitation center which serves children and youth with autism, epilepsy, Down’s syndrome, infantile paralysis, and other conditions. The classes combined medical treatments with competitions and games using balls, hoops, and jump ropes.

On November 3, 2009, Virginians elected a new governor, and Muskie fellows Alexandru Mocanu and Andriy Olenyuk were in the thick of the excitement as poll monitoring volunteers.

For the first time in twelve years, Georgia Southern University (GSU) has a Russian language and cultural course thanks to the volunteer efforts of Saida Akbarova, a 2008 Muskie fellow from Uzbekistan studying in GSU’s graduate education program.

Bakai Madybaev, a 2009 Muskie fellow from Kyrgyzstan, had the chance to meet the investor, businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett in November. Bakai, an MBA student at Texas Christian University (TCU), traveled to Omaha with fellow students from TCU’s Neeley School of Business to visit two of Buffett’s companies and hear him speak about life, business, and the current economy.