When Almazbek Suiunbekov came to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as a boy, he seemed destined for a life of poverty and exclusion. He lived in squalid conditions in the outskirts of the city, worked in the market to help his mother, and had no access to health care and other services.

 

“I had no resources, no means, no self-esteem. I didn’t believe in dreams,” he remembers. But today Almazbek, 22, is enrolled in a programme to prepare him for studies in software engineering at a prestigious university while he volunteers for Y-PEER, where he shares his experiences with other young people struggling with many of the same challenges in life.

 

Y-PEER is a youth network initiated by UNFPA in the region to help young people teach each other about contraception, HIV prevention, relationships and other sexual and reproductive health issues, as well as leadership skills.

 

Almazbek credits the nongovernmental Centre for Protection of Children for enabling him to turn his life around. He received food, clothes and money for school material. He went back to school, received training, and became a trainer himself. “I started to believe in myself. I started to have dreams about my future,” Almazbek says.

 

At a Y-PEER youth conference in 2007, Almazbek got in touch with youth activists from all over the country. “I saw other young people working on youth issues. I wanted to be like them. I didn’t know how, but I knew I wanted to be like them,” he says.

 

Almazbek’s story is featured in UNFPA’s Annual Report 2012, "Promises to Keep".