Many countries are now waiting for the negative consequences from the coronavirus.  The pandemic has made some adjustments in Kyrgyzstan as well. Many enterprises in the country have sent even the most valuable employees on unpaid leave, or even temporarily closed down.

But there are also enterprises that have received more work instead of the crisis. But sometimes it depends on the sphere of activity, and sometimes on the entrepreneur himself.

Ainoura Sagynbayeva, a mentor of the UNDP’s “Aid for Trade in Central Asia” project, owns several businesses. None of them have closed since the beginning of the epidemic. All businesses are quite innovative and work during quarantine. The entrepreneur has a large number of part-time employees in Kyrgyzstan. 

"I am glad that during the quarantine we continue to participate in tenders and implement projects. During this time, we won 3 tenders. We have enough work - the staff is busy. They continue to receive their salaries while at home and working online.  We were able to translate some of the methods of information collection into online or telephone type of survey".

Ainoura Sagynbayeva, businesswoman

Ainoura has been in business for over 22 years. She runs a consulting firm that operates in 6 countries. She works with international research agencies, leading European and American universities, almost all international organizations that operate in Central Asia.

The second business is English language courses aimed at 5 countries of Central Asia, but now the work is done only in Kyrgyzstan.

 "While we work only in Kyrgyzstan, the whole team believes that this is an effective way of reforming our education in a very short time.  Our English courses are a combined methodology: online platform for practice, immersion with native speakers and offline teaching – coaching. Child learns English not in 9 years, but in 2-3 years at school".

Ainoura Sagynbayeva, businesswoman

According to the entrepreneur, especially in the context of the pandemic, our schoolchildren could gain knowledge in mathematics, biology, chemistry, IT, history and other school disciplines through free online resources in English language.   Schoolchildren would have more opportunities to get a quality education. In this regard, she transformed business to 100% online and today teaches, not only to schoolchildren, but also to improve the skills of teachers.

Despite the fact that Ainoura had a lot of work during quarantine, she has supported workers who affected by the epidemic. In particular, the businesswoman hired a couple of teachers on the eve of the quarantine. All teachers are now employed and receive their salaries. Moreover, her company was able to launch social campaigns.

"For example, if a mother buys herself a month of English training, we teach her child for free too. For us, this supports our values - the values of the family. So that mother and child can be closer to each other and can learn together. We have also provided charity support to mothers with children with autism. Special children have been studying with us for a long time and have shown good results. Due to the epidemic, the financial capacity of many parents has decreased. Thanks to friends and members of the Kurak WF, we were able to co-finance our students from different backgrounds. We really want them to come out of the epidemic with new opportunities".

Ainoura Sagynbayeva, businesswoman

Crisis is a new environment, new opportunities, the search for new instruments. You can always find ways to be a winner and make a breakthrough. With this principle, Ainoura has been successfully running several businesses for over twenty years.