Stories and significant changes
Nurgulya Imasheva
- Name:
- Nurgulya Imasheva
- Home town:
- Taldykorgan, Kazakhstan
- Exchange:
- Wales - Kazakhstan, 2005
I'm changing although only three months have passed. Looking at my past life I see myself in a grey world. Sometimes it seemed to me I haven't been living, just following the flow of life. Work, home, home, work, that was all. And it lasted for years. It's terrible when you don't like your work, when you are displeased with everything around you. And sometimes you even hate everybody and everything and first of all hate yourself.
Here appears a question: whose fault is it? The answer is simple: yourself, your uncertainties, your endless worries and fears.
About six months ago I read an advertisement about Global Exchange, which said there would be recruitment and selection in my town to take part in a voluntary project. The last words about the selection process almost stopped me again out of fear, but I made myself come and take part in the interview day. I tried to do my best prove I was good enough to be a volunteer, but I didn't have confidence that I would succeed.
And now I am here, among eighteen people, in a plane on the way to Great Britain. In the UK we will begin the second phase of the Global Exchange project.
I am proud to be one of the participants of this project because one of its aims is to help people with disabilities. I like the work I do now, and maybe in future I'll work in the social sphere. One of my aims is to try to find out what I can do, what I am good at, and what I can do to help people to be useful. And another reason in my participation is to become confident, independent, and dynamic.
I feel like I am moving forward and I am achieving these aims now. I never thought I would be able to live in Host Homes, away from my family, and I did it. I did it and I had a good and friendly relationship with my host family. I also feel more confident to work in different places, in different organisations. Now I feel I can visit any place to get the information I need. It's great, especially taking account of how before I even tried to avoid people outside in the streets.
I have made a lot of effort to reach my aims. I'm sure I will have become another person by the end of the project. I'll be a person not being afraid to face difficulties, looking towards the future with hope.