Learn to lead. Learn to earn. At the same time.
Leaders for Change is our flagship: a two-year, practical programme for young people aged seventeen and over, women first, and young men who share our values as allies. It is not a school of lectures. Most weeks you will present something, build something, or defend something in front of people whose opinion you care about. And it is built in stages, so each part you complete earns a certificate you can use straight away, whether you stay for one semester, one year, or both.
You will study in English, Russian and Uzbek, choose courses that match your own goals, and be paired with a mentor who knows your name. Below is what the two years hold.
Pillar one
Leadership
Leadership at Tumarys does not begin with giving orders. It begins with knowing yourself. You will study how leaders actually behave, drawing on Samarkand business owners and national figures, with women leaders at the centre of the story. You will write your own leadership statement and set a five-year vision for your life. You will learn to find the real problem behind a messy situation, weigh evidence against your own biases, and make ethical decisions when the information is incomplete. The pillar closes with a real innovation challenge: your team takes on a genuine local problem, from tourism bottlenecks to neighbourhood waste, and presents a worked solution to a panel.
- Leadership styles and your own; personal values and vision
- Strategic thinking: root-cause analysis, weighing evidence, managing risk
- Ethical decision-making and emotional intelligence
- A real innovation challenge, pitched to a panel
Pillar two
Soft skills
These are the skills that decide whether talent is ever seen. You will practise public speaking with your presentations recorded and reviewed, until you can hold a room. You will write professional messages that actually get answered, negotiate and resolve conflict through practice rather than theory, and gain full command of the digital tools every employer assumes you have: documents, spreadsheets, online collaboration, and the habits that keep you safe online. This pillar runs through everything else, because a good idea badly presented is a wasted idea.
- Public speaking and storytelling, recorded and coached
- Professional writing, in three languages
- Negotiation, teamwork and conflict resolution
- Digital fluency and online safety
Pillar three
Career establishment
The final pillar turns learning into a livelihood. You will build a CV that reads like you and a professional profile that brings opportunities to your door. You will sit mock interviews with real HR professionals and learn to keep a personal budget you actually follow. And you will be introduced to entrepreneurship in enough depth that some of you will never need the CV at all: how to validate an idea, sketch a business model, and pitch it to a live panel of local businesspeople.
- CV, cover letter and professional online profile
- Mock interviews with real employers
- Personal financial literacy and budgeting
- Entrepreneurship: idea to pitch
A week in the programme
No two weeks are identical, but a typical one mixes a morning workshop, hands-on project time, a session with a visiting professional from a partner business, language practice, and mentor time. You are rarely sitting still and never learning in the abstract. By the end of each semester you have finished real work you can show.
What you leave with
- A digital portfolio of everything you built
- A mentor who knows your name and answers your calls
- A paid internship with one of our partner businesses
- The Tumarys certificate, at the Foundation, Practitioner or Diploma level you reach
Most importantly, the evidence, to an employer and to yourself, that you can do the work.
Leaders for Change: your questions
- Do I need to choose a specialisation?
- Not at the start. Everyone shares a common core of communication, digital, financial and career skills. From there you choose courses that fit your goals, and women may add one of the two specialised pathways.
- What if I can only study for one year, or one semester?
- The programme is built in stages. Each stage you complete earns a certificate, so your time is never wasted even if you cannot stay for the full two years.
- Is the internship really paid?
- Yes. Internships with our partner businesses are paid, and they are part of the programme, not an optional extra. Placement is our responsibility, not yours alone.
- Can men apply?
- Yes, to the flagship programme, as allies. The two specialised women’s pathways are for women only.
- Two years, in stages
- Women first, male allies welcome
- Taught in English, Russian and Uzbek
- Internship included
- Opens March 2027