Maryna Puzdrova
Conference Director

Maryna was born in Belarus and moved to Prague five years ago. She’s got a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities from the Faculty of Humanities at the Charles University in Prague in spring 2009 and is currently getting her Master Degree in Civil Sector Studies there. Her main interest is the role of NGOs in International Politics. She focuses on transition and humanitarian NGOs in Czech Republic and abroad. Maryna has joined CCI team in autumn 2006 as an Intern. Then for two years she has been Regional Project Coordinator. Being a Conference Director she belives that IYLC is a great opportunity for young people to develop their leadership skills and strengthen awareness in global issues.

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Katarina Fagosova
Project Coordinator

Katarina received a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Charles University in Prague in 2006 and she is currently fulfilling her Master’s Degree in Political Science there. She also studied at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where she took courses dealing with Australian Political Institutions and the place of Indigenous Australians in the political system of Australia. Last year Katarina participated in organising the 8th NGO market – an annual event organised by Forum 2000. She loves travelling, photography and meeting new people. After a year exchange in Spain, Katarina is currently working on her Master's Degree at Charles University in Prague.

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Yana Brovdiy 
Project Assistant

Yana has joined CCI team after successfully completing her internship during the 19th IYLC. She was amazed with the variety of participants from around the world, topics discussed and the outcomes of the winter conference. This year Yana is finishing her Bachelor’s Degree of International Relations and European Studies at the Metropolitan University Prague. Her area of interest is immigration and she hopes to continue her Master Degree in this field. Prior to the CCI Yana completed an internship at the Ukrainian service of the Radio Free Europe. She is also an Advertising Coordinator of the Central European Journal of International and Security Studies (CEJISS) Yana spent one year in the USA as a FLEX exchange student and hopes one day to acquire Ph.D degree there. Yana likes travelling, spending time with her friends.

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Civic Concepts International (CCI) is a social enterprise promoting global citizenship by partnering with youth organizations and educators to provide high-potential youth with tools and resources that will build leadership skills, promote cross-cultural understanding, and cultivate ethical responsibility.

Our goal at Civic Concepts International is to enable motivated and ambitious young leaders to jump out of the classroom and into the world. We provide the tools for youth to participate in society and feel a broader connection to their world; because once they are connected they are also involved. And once they are involved they can make positive changes in their communities because they are informed, inspired, determined, and responsible. By facilitating a cross-cultural exchange of ideas and fostering international relationships, we learn from each other and with each other. We acknowledge that these practices are the key to a peace-filled future. We will continue to teach young international leaders to practice tolerance and coexistence early on by exposing them to people and places they would not otherwise encounter.

If young people can learn cultural sensitivity early on, while being informed about pertinent global issues, then they are likely to practice these principles in their future actions and activities. Civic Concepts International is an innovation in education that bridges knowledge and experience in order to facilitate unrestricted learning.

William Webster
Executive Director of CCI

William Webster has been promoting and developing international youth leadership for ten years. After working with the Congressional Youth Leadership Council in DC and the National Youth Leadership Forum in Philadelphia, Webster moved to Europe to launch a similar initiative in Central Europe, where he founded Civic Concepts International and the International Youth Leadership Conference, which is now in its eighth year. In Dubai CCI took this same principle to strengthen the voice of women in the Middle East where Webster met with Benazir Bhutto and the Sheikh of Dubai promoting youth development. International Youth Leadership Africa was launched by CCI with these same ideas with a regional perspective in mind in order to develop the next generation of African Leader. While in Cape Town at the founding IYLA Webster sat down with the conference's key note Morgan Tsvangirai and spoke about ongoing regional issues and the importance of reaching out to the next generation.

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Ismayil Khayredinov
Director of Programmes

Ismayil's involvement with Civic Concepts International tracks back to 8th IYLC in 2004, when he attended the conference and fell in love with Prague. Since then he assisted the project in various capacities - logistics coordinator, communications administrator, facilitator - and filled in the position of the Conference Director in January 2008. With his educational background in Economics and Cybernetics, Ismayil believes firmly in a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to education, and is therefore passionate about the IYLC, which offers an ideal opportunity to blend the diverse experiences to produce something unique, innovative and inventive. Ismayil is eagerly anticipating the next conference, which will once again take him to a "different world", where there is no war, no misunderstanding, no hatred, no violence, the world that is governed by the ideas of peace and the common sense of shared future.

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