My name is Thierno Iliassa Balde and I am a Mining Engineering Student at Karadeniz Technical University under a fully funded scholarship by the Turkish Government. And one of the main reason of getting that scholarship is my academic achievement along side the social activities I did when I was in my country such as gathering youth of neighborhood to clean the beaches of my city in order to have a clean area where people can go and enjoy themselves without all the dirt, as a person who taught himself English from an early age, I would help my friends in the English subject by teaching them for our exams especially the High school National exam where I was among the first twenties of the whole country and also got a scholarship from my government to study abroad. Before leaving my country, I was a member of Lions Club International for three months before I moved to Turkey. And right now in Turkey, I am a Team Leader of AIESEC (An international youth-run, not-for-profit organization) in Trabzon where I manage my Team Members and with whom I work everyday to create projects to bring and send the youth around the world to improve their skills and leadership through internship, Volunteering, Teaching English…. Wherever I am, I like taking action to touch, influence in the best way, improve people’s lives and inspire them. To be honest it is not necessary the people of my country but everyone I can reach especially the youth because we are the future of humanity. I am the only foreigner in AIESEC Trabzon but with everything that comes along the way I handle it very well as always. I work with people around the world (Brazil, India, Russia, Pakistan…) in our IR (International Relations) to create projects and help AIESEC applicants. In spite of being a foreign student and sometimes my struggle with the Turkish Language, I still find ways of helping people not only in Turkey but around the world. Last year, during the confinement in our dormitory, friends were getting corona everyday so I stepped up and took my certificate of (Let’s Break The Chain of Covid-19 Infection) organized by The Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences with the cooperation of UAE AID from which I learned to help my friends having Covid-19 and protect my self and friends who hadn’t gotten it. And I am sure that this is the beginning of a long journey.
Yours Sincerely,
THIERNO ILIASSA BALDE