In March, University of Minnesota alumna Kamila Rollan was appointed to the Presidential Council for Youth Policy by Erlan Karin, the State Secretary of Kazakhstan.
Rollan, now a third-year PhD student at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, was a 2017 fellow in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Anniversary Inclusive Education Fellowship Program. The University of Minnesota program was led by the Institute on Community Integration and the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, in cooperation with Arizona State University and several international partners.
The appointment came swiftly after a new government was installed in Kazakhstan in January, amid demands for more accountability in government.
“The main functions are advising and informing the president about the issues and needs of youth, providing recommendations for the youth policy agenda, and analyzing the agenda’s implementation,” she said. “It’s a platform for people like me to voice our concerns about the state of affairs for youth.”