Meerim enjoys maths a lot. She is sixteen and wants to apply to a foreign university to receive an education so she can find a well-paid job to support her family. But she probably won’t be able to do that.
Why not?
Because Meerim lives in the remote village of Kyzart and her English language classes at school barely even prepare her to greet tourists. It is hard to find English teachers in Kyzart and even if she could find a tutor, she wouldn’t be able to afford the lessons.
What about free online courses? Meerim only speaks Kyrgyz, will she be able to find many courses in her native language?
Unfortunately, knowing only Kyrgyz, it is nearly impossible to learn English in Kyrgyzstan. As a result, many thousands of Kyrgyz-speaking students from every region find themselves linguistically isolated.
Currently the problem is solved in a very complicated and ineffective way, where Kyrgyz-speaking children have to first learn Russian to be able to learn English. There are simply no available, high-quality English courses taught in Kyrgyz. Needless to say, the situation is unfair and time-consuming. Kyrgyz-spaking people are separated and marginalised within their own country for not knowing Russian.
We are eager to give students like Meerim a fair chance.
Kloop is launching its own learning platform called Okutool. Our goal is simple: we want to provide Kyrgyz-speaking citizens an opportunity to learn English without having to know Russian.
Meerim will not have to travel from Kyzart to another village or city — all she needs is to download an Android or iOS app, or access the web-version of our learning platform on a computer. Meerim can start learning right away. She will have immediate access to a curriculum with five levels of difficulty. She can benefit from both interactive learning and specialised development of her reading, writing, listening and speaking skills.
Okutool is being developed by an experienced team of teachers, programmers, and coordinators, who will constantly update and improve the lessons.
As a result, Meerim can learn any science and master any discipline she wants. She will be able to apply to any university in the world and land her dream job. Additionally, knowing English can elevate the quality of life for her and her family.
Meerim’s path to learning English will be a lot shorter than the current one. Furthermore, along the way, she will not fall into the web of Russian propaganda that has coated Kyrgyzstan due to the popularity of the Russian language.
That is exactly why we want English to displace Russian to become the second most popular language in our country. We believe that this way we will not only help our country to develop, but also to defend its independence.
We really want our citizens to be able to receive information and gain knowledge from a variety of sources. We dream that in search of a better life, our people would not be left with the choice of going to Surgut or Ekaterinburg, but would be able to choose amongst all the countries of the world.
We are also looking for help along the way from donors, volunteers and specialists.
Donors, this is your chance to make a difference!
Implementing our project on the scale that we dream of will lead to fundamental positive changes in Kyrgyzstan. And not only in education – widespread knowledge of English and reducing dependence on Russia will lead to the development of all sectors in Kyrgyzstan, from industry to tourism.
We are ready to work on the project tirelessly. Kloop has a proven track record turning unique dreams into actionable projects.
In 2007, we created a media outlet that paved the way for a whole generation of brave journalists, including brilliant investigators. In 2020, we started observing elections on an unprecedented scale, and since then our technology has also been used in other countries like Hungary and Zimbabwe.
To make it all happen requires a lot of hard work from many people, so we are calling on charitable foundations and grant-giving organisations for support.
This is your opportunity to go down in the annals in the history of Kyrgyzstan. Invest in making Kyrgyzstan a truly developed country. Help us defend our freedom.
Everyone can help!
If you want to support us, you could do that by becoming a patron on our Patreon. Even a single dollar a month could help change someone’s life for the better. Donating via Patreon will take only a few seconds.
You could help even without money.
Volunteering is literally built into our system. By filling out the questionnaire, you are able to join the creative team of volunteers. Volunteer work is carried out within our learning platform, where every task you complete helps our students learn.
We always need English teachers, especially those with knowledge of Kyrgyz. You can help us lead talking clubs for students, check completed assignments and translations of articles to expand Kyrgyz-language Wikipedia, as well as create new text and video lessons.
If you know how to program in Python, you can help us by creating scripts to generate automated tests. Flutter developers can also be a huge help to the project by developing special training form-widgets.
In the near future we plan to integrate into the BLOOM system from BigScience (or another large language model), if this interests you, we would eagerly accept your help in the field of NLP.
Someday we are going to gamify part of the system and we will need illustrators, screenwriters and other specialists in the field of gamification. We would be glad to discuss these ideas with you if you are interested.
To contact us at your convenience, reach out to us below:
— If you want to join our project as a volunteer, please fill out the form
— If you want to become a patron, follow the link to our Patreon
– If you are a donor, email us at [email protected] & [email protected]
message us at +996 554 594 294 (Whatsapp, Telegram) or fill out the form
— If you want to start learning English with us, you can follow this link or join this telegram group or write to the number (+996) 220 155 567