Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva runs two major charitable organizations in Uzbekistan.
She has been involved in helping orphanages since her student years. She set up the You are not alone foundation in 2002 to protect the rights of orphaned children and provide them with better opportunities for getting comprehensive education. The charitable organization was instrumental in effecting key nationwide reforms to improve the situation in orphanages across Uzbekistan and create there conditions close to the home environment. There has been major focus on promoting education for children left without parental care and ensuring that food served in the orphanages is in strict compliance with the nutritional requirements for kids. With the foundation’s financial backing, a number of charitable institutions for orphans and children with special needs have been renovated, refurbished and provided with state-of-the-art facilities, equipment, sports and play grounds, pools and medical units.
An important area of the charity’s work is to provide children being brought up in orphanages with books, text books, equipment, school supplies, computers and children’s clothing.
In 2003 the charity founded the Education Centre whose main goal is to raise children’s understanding of the paramount importance of education and knowledge in building a better future as well as to positively influence children from orphanages and disadvantaged families to take post-secondary education. At the Education Centre, children attend classes in math, chemistry, IT, English, ethics, the Russian language and literature, the history of Uzbek culture and arts. The charity invites lecturers and teachers from across the country to prepare children to entrance exams at lyceums, colleges and universities.
The charitable organization also provides funding for the treatment of children left without parental care and from low-income families, including surgery grants for children with serious medical conditions, involving heart diseases, hearing loss, spinal conditions, eye problems, cleft palate defects.
In 2004, Lola set up the second charitable organization, the National Centre for the Social Adaptation of Children (NCSAC), which provides comprehensive support to children with developmental delay and impairment.
The Centre’s specialists - including special educators, speech pathologists, speech therapists, psychologists, child neurologists, instructors on therapeutic exercises, orthopaedic surgeons, masseurs, sign language teachers, art therapists - develop individual assistance programmes for every child with disabilities and signs of stunted growth who come to the centre. All services are provided free of charge.
The centre is fitted out with state-of-the-art equipment for the functional recovery of children suffering from muscolosekeletal disorders, including Locomat treadmills, Solostep physical therapy devices. The programme for rehabilitation provides for engaging children as well as developing their senses through plays in sensory, Montessori, sand, art and fairy tale therapy rooms.
To date, the charitable organization has provided help to about 5,000 children with special needs (aged between 1 and 18), including children suffering from cerebral palsy, mental retardation, speech delay, autism, Down syndrome, hyperactivity, aggression; as well as children who suffered violence and abuse in their families.
The charity also provides assistance, including counselling and financial help, to parents of disabled children, with special focus on supporting women marginalized and victimized by their husbands and families due to the condition of their children.
Promoting a quality and effective education for disabled children is an important area of the charity's work and the Centre provides assistance in the enrolment of disabled children in public schools as well as developing educational material for children with special needs.
Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was born in Tashkent in 1978. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in International Law from the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, and later received a PhD in Psychology from Tashkent State University.
Lola and her husband Timur Tillyaev have three children: Maryam, Umar and Safia`.