Dildara Apsalyamova - Don’t Let the World Dictate Who You Are, Be a Creator of Your Own Life (Vice President, AIESEC in Kazakhstan)

I wanted others to believe in themselves. To believe that they are strong individuals that can overcome any kind of difficulties and don’t afford them to ruin their lives. 

1. Please tell us about your background and journey.

Since I was young I was always getting curious about always learning something new thanks to my grandmother in which house I spent a big part of my childhood and there was a big bookcase.

I think each of you faced bullying at school. “Moto-Moto”, Fatty, Big Ass were the usual nicknames that I heard every day. Because of this I had a strong eating disorder. After I got better – I promised myself that I will help each person who hates his personality in order not to be in such kind of situation as I was. That’s why I took participated in a lot of charity organizations and always had a social part of my life.
 
2. When and why did you join AIESEC?

As I told you before – bullying really affected my personality formation. That’s why I was always thinking for the “safe” place and for supportive friends and environment and took participation in different kind of charity organizations during my student life.

When I first came to AIESEC in 2017 I saw a person talking about AIESEC Way and its history: it was created in order to prevent any kind of conflicts due to cross-cultural understanding. It really touched my soul and I found out that injustice, discrimination and violence were consequences of Second World War. I mentioned previously that I faced strong bullying in my school and I didn’t want others to have the same experience.

I wanted others to believe in themselves. To believe that they are strong individuals that can overcome any kind of difficulties and don’t afford them to ruin their lives. 

I wanted them to believe that they have the greatest support in themselves – backbone, “invisible” force, soul, personality – each of people calls it in their own way but you have it. I wanted their lives to become better with the help of fulfillment of their humankind potential. That’s why I joined AIESEC.

3. Why do you think it is important for people to develop leadership skills early on?

Like I said – it’s important because of their personality forming. First of all, for sure they need to focus on internal leadership (predominantly, EQ) and then go to external ones: striving for excellence, demonstrating integrity, activating leadership, enjoying participation, living diversity, acting sustainably. 

Besides that - leadership is a new black, everybody talks about it, and in order to be a competitive employee – you need to have such kinds of qualities as Self Aware, World Citizen, Empowering Others, and Solution-Oriented.
 
4. What have been your biggest learnings from your experience?

AIESEC is a platform where you can make mistakes, take key learning points from each of the situations you’ve got without self-flagellation.

That’s why the biggest learning that I have learned so far – our unpleasant situations in a long-time period can be our success depends on how we perceive the external events. If we take from the “negative” situation key learning points that will help to develop the best version of ourselves – then we will have success in the future.

5. What advice would you give to people who just enter college?

Don’t let the world dictate who you are, be a creator of your own life without strong combat with external circumstances.
 
6. How has AIESEC adapted during Covid?

It’s more about making and putting all the efforts into our membership. We begin to appreciate more all the work that we have done and started to dedicate more time not only to goals but also to our people and business processes.

Moreover, we always sought new ideas on how to increase the engagement of members and delegates during online events. It was more about fast adaptation to the current reality.

If we are talking about our main product – internships, we made more focus on the quality of it rather than quantity.

7. Which is your favorite book and why? 

My favorite book is “Gone with the Wind”. The main heroine despite all of the circumstances reached her main goal – rescue her own estate.

Dildara Apsalyamova | Public Relations Vice-President, AIESEC in Kazakhstan

Interviewed By: Nishad Kinhikar