Sara Nazarbayeva

Sara Alpysqyzy Nazarbayeva (; ; born 12 February 1941) served as the First Lady of Kazakhstan and is married to former President Nursultan Nazarbayev. She married Nursultan in 1962 after her graduation. They have three daughters — Dariga, Dinara and Aliya — and eleven grandchildren and a great granddaughter.

Nazarbayeva is the President of , an international children's foundation, which she founded in 1992. For her work with children she was awarded the Ihsan Dogramaci Family Health Foundation Prize by the World Health Organization in 1997 and the International Unity Prize.

Biography Sara Konakayeva was born on February 12, 1941, in the village of Kyzyl-Zhar, Karaganda Region (now part of Ulytau Region). When Sara was five years old, her mother passed away. At the age of twelve, she left school and began working at a garment factory.

In 1962, she married Nursultan Nazarbayev. They met while working together in the blast furnace shop of the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant, where Nazarbayev worked as a blast furnace operator and his future wife worked at the blast furnace electrical substation.

In 2011, Sara Nazarbayeva signed an agreement providing targeted charitable assistance to children in educational institutions through the State Educational Savings System. Under this initiative, the Bobek Foundation opened free educational savings accounts for approximately 7,000 children living in orphanages. As a result, nearly 90% of orphaned children in Kazakhstan received guaranteed access to higher or vocational education, regardless of whether they received a state educational grant.

SOS Children’s Villages

In 1993, while visiting Munich, Sara Nazarbayeva toured an SOS Children’s Village established by SOS Kinderdorf International, where orphaned children lived in family-style homes with dedicated caregivers acting as mothers. Inspired by this model, she promoted its introduction in Kazakhstan. Later that year, an agreement was signed between the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan and SOS Kinderdorf International. In 1994, the SOS Children’s Villages Kazakhstan Foundation was established, with Sara Nazarbayeva serving as its president.

The first SOS Children’s Village in Kazakhstan opened in Almaty in 1997, the second in Astana in 2000, and the third in Temirtau in 2004.

She also participated in drafting the Law on Family-Type Children’s Villages and Youth Homes, adopted in December 2000.

With Sara Nazarbayeva’s direct support, the Law on the Rights of the Child was also drafted and adopted in August 2002.