The prospective first graders from LILIA kindergarten in Plovdiv’s neighborhood Stolipinovo celebrated their last day at the kindergarten with a beautiful fete. The children were bid farewell by their teachers – the director Sevdalina Gencheva and educators Malinka Tsareva, Genoveva Kandeva and Genka Petrova. In fact, Mrs Petrova has retired recently but nevertheless came to wish the pupils all the best for the future.

The children danced and sang dressed in Roma folklore inspired costumes, specially made for the occasion by the kindergarten staff. At the beginning of the celebration with the help of their teachers they prepared a collage wall panel representing a kite with the names of all prospective first graders from LILIA kindergarten. In the end of the celebration, there was, of course, a beautiful and tasty festive cake with fireworks.

The artistic program delivered by the pupils is, in fact, part of the methods through which the educators from LILIA kindergarten are trying to achieve a more active inclusion of both children and parents into the education process. The project implemented in Plovdiv under the ZOV Programme aims to support the work of teachers by offering them a number of innovative ideas in the area of multicultural education. In this connection, a special training for educators working with bilingual students is planned to be organized under the project.

LILIA kindergarten is situated in the hearth of ethnic ghetto Stolipinovo and consequently, 100% of its pupils are of Roma origin. The main challenge teachers face is related to the poor Bulgarian language skills of Stolipinovo’s Roma population. Therefore, as part of project activities we have scheduled extra classes in Bulgarian to be conducted with the objective to improve the language abilities of students whose mother tongue is not Bulgarian.

In relation to this, Mrs. Sevdalina Gencheva, director of LILIA kindergarten, said: “We are all very happy with the help provided under this project since it envisions conducting extra language classes and other language related activities for children whose mother tongue is different than Bulgarian. These activities will continue to take place even during the summer. Thus, the lessons learned in the course of the school year will not be forgotten. The main problem here in Stolipinovo is related to the fact that most Roma families use only Turkish or Roma language at home. If not attending kindergarten for a long period of time, the ethnic minority children usually tend to forget completely how to speak Bulgarian. The supplementary activities in Bulgarian language scheduled for the summer period will help the children to improve their social skills and facilitate their transition into the school system.”

See more about our project activities in Plovdiv

An emotional celebration on 30th May marked the end of the school year in „Hristo Botev“ Primary School in „Pobeda“ neighbourhood - Burgas. Many of the children study at the school support building, built entirely under the local project for Social Inclusion of Roma and Other Vulnerable Groups in the framework of the ZOV Programme.

With songs, dances, cheerleading performances, poems and many smiles, the preparatory groups, which comprise nearly 200 children, graduated this school year. The celebration was organized in the gym – a facility that the school lacked before the implementation of the project. Another positive effect of the work under the ZOV Programme is that in the course of one year, the children, most of whom are bilinguals, have literally „got to speak“ Bulgarian language: they can freely communicate in Bulgarian, and study Bulgarian songs and poems.

For the summer period, the school has planned additional study activities in the preparatory groups and the elementary stage classes. There will be extracurricular activities and sports as well. The planned events also include excursions for the children.

The dance ensemble of Primary School "St. St. Cyril and Methodius" in the village of Gabrovnitsa won the Jury Prize at the National Folklore Competition in Meshtitsa village, Pernik District.

The passionate dancers presented two group folk dances, which they have learnt during the extracurricular activities, organized under the ZOV Programme (Health and Education for All). The Gabrovnitsa formation competed with about 700 young folk talents from 42 different institutions.

"Participating in such folk festival motivates the children as they have the opportunity to compare with other dancers of their age. This stimulates their ambition to reach the best and makes them more thorough and enthusiastic to learn better to dance. We are planning to participate in the folklore gathering "Svidniyaa" in the village of Georgi Damyanovo”, says Mrs. Tanya Todorova, the leader of the dance ensemble.

On 31 May, the local team of the ZOV Programme in Sliven organized a lecture "Early пarriages" in Nadezhda, the Roma neighbourhood. The early marriages are one of the serious problems of the community of Roma and other vulnerable people causing high school dropouts rates and hurdles for their social inclusion in the future and therefore, the ZOV Programme is actively working on its prevention with all possible means

The meeting aimed at raising awareness of the problem and prevention, as well as a discussion about the solutions with the active input of the participants. The lecturers put a special highlight on education as the tool to the improvement of the socioeconomic status of the Roma and other vulnerable groups. Graduating school and acquiring a professional qualification is the ultimate solution for the social inclusion of the people from this community.

The participants discussed also issues of the reproductive health with a highlight on the early sexual intercourse in the Roma community.

The meeting was organized by RACO, Roma Academy for Culture and Education – Sliven, one of the ZOV local partners in the Sliven region.

See more about the ZOV activities in Sliven

The 80th  anniversary of Library Meeting Centre „Hristo Botev 1937“ in „Pobeda“ neighbourhood in Burgas will be celebrated this year. Owing to the project for Social Inclusion of Roma and Other Vulnerable Groups, funded by the ZOV Programme, the Library Meeting Centre will meet its birthday after a serious repair.

„Hristo Botev 1937“  is the only  library meeting centre in the Municipality of Burgas with a large hall for theatre performances. Nevertheless, the last play that was performed in it before the repair was in 2009. A year later the hall was practically useless because of its poor material state.  The staff relied on old heaters, which only produced noise and consumed energy without actually heating the premises.

Today the situation is different. Library Meeting Centre „Hristo Botev 1937“ is regularly visited by actors from Burgas and Pomorie, who attract the child audience from „Pobeda“ neighbourhood, and the hall turns out to be narrow for them. The air-conditioners in the premises are coloumn-type and powerful enough to heat it, and everything in the hall has been replaced and renovated. The entire repair, funded under the ZOV Programme, amounts to almost 140 000 levs, and the equipment - 13 607 levs. The roof, which was regularly leaking before that, has entirely been replaced.  The library was renovated with new shelves. The storage room, where the roof had nearly collapsed, was also repaired. A new information centre, equipped with computers, was opened at the centre. The children will enjoy a small chamber hall, where they can get together, read books and meet different authors.

Katerina Gageva has been secretary of the library meeting centre since 1984. She says that there have always been difficulties and there will always be, but they try to cope with them. They educate 30 children under the project of Burgas Municipality alone, and apart from that, there are another 40 children educated at the Library Meeting Centre. They have a formation for amateur and applied arts that regularly wins awards from different competitions. They have also started dance classes – folk and standard dances. Their aim is that the children acquire a general dance culture and get acquainted not only with the “horo” but also with the waltz, cha-cha-cha and other.

„The children need this. Here, in the neighbourhood, they are centralized, they do not go out anywhere. It is important for us that the children have somewhere to go, have something to see, feel more important, gain self-confidence. And this will also help their socialization“, shares Gageva.
"The main difficulties before the library meeting centre are related to funding", pointed out Katerina Gageva. For the moment, they rely on the subsidy and donors but without the repair carried out with the funding under the ZOV Programme, the library meeting centre would not  have had the possibility to function normally and educate the children.

„The Integrated Project for Social Inclusion of Roma and Other Vulnerable Groups“ is under the ZOV Programme and is implemented with the financial support of the Bulgarian-Swiss Cooperation Programme. Partners to the project are the Municipality of Sredets, the Municipality of Malko Tarnovo, „Regional Roma Union“ Foundation, „Hristo Botev“ Primary School in „Pobeda“ neighbourhood in Burgas and „OFF Media“ Foundation.

See more of our work in Burgas in this link









 

Appointed recently by the ZOV Programme, two educational mediators in Shumen and one in the adjacent village of Ivanski started working with children and parents.
 
The mediators’ work is mainly focused on enrolling children in kindergarten and school, as well as work with the parents to send them to school, paying the fees, opening a new group in the Kindergarten “Proletna Daga”, visiting regularly the activities in “School for parents” supporting the adaptation of the first graders in school and catching up lessons in Bulgarian language for those who haven’t visited the preparatory groups in the kindergarten.

Meanwhile, the mediators are having a training on computer literacy, pedagogical interaction, communication skills and field work, provided by lecturers from Shumen University "Konstantin Preslavski".

The mediators in Shumen and Ivanski village will facilitate the communication of people from the vulnerable groups with the institutions on location.

More than 30 parents attended the meeting with the team of the Roma Academy of Culture and Education (RACO), which was recently organized in Sliven under the municipality's project within the ZOV Programme. The parents came to the meeting together with their children who are supposed to be soon enrolled in kindergarten.

Stela Kostova from RACO explained how the parents can enroll their children in the kindergarten and provided information about the kindergarten’s rules and daily routine. "After breakfast in the morning the children will have several educational activities, which will continue shortly after the afternoon snack”, explained she. "There will be pedagogues and nurses to take care of the children, as well as to organize several activities for them. Most importantly, they will build up school habits and be prepared for the first grade in school”.

The parents showed interest to enroll children in the nursery, which will open up time to get to work. At the end of the meeting, the children received coloured children's books from the RACO team and Tony helped them learn several some songs. Both, surprised and joyful parents and children soon sang together popular Bulgarian songs.

A health campaign has been carried out on 27 June 2016 in the Plovdiv’s neighborhood of Stolipinovo and in the town of Kuklen as part of the activities of the project “All Together – for better education and health”. The aim of the events’ organizers was to provide more information to local Roma population regarding the project and more specifically regarding the healthcare activities funded under the ZOV programme.

Project manager Sevdzhan Mollabekir and health expert Nina Bankova first visited the project locations in the town of Kuklen where in the facilities of one of the project’s partners, the Indi Roma 97 foundation, they met young mothers from the local Roma community. Ms. Mollabekir introduced briefly young women to programme’s objectives and project’s activities. Then the health mediator in Kuklen, Mariana Rangelova, conducted a healthcare information session about the importance of regular immunizations for the proper development of children. Mariana Rangelova herself is part of the Roma community in Kuklen and this gives her the advantage to be familiar with the specific needs of local Roma people. Having a vocational diploma in economics, she gained experience working as an expert at the municipal administration of Kuklen. According to Mariana, the health mediator has a crucial role for overcoming the misunderstandings that sometimes occur between local institutions and Roma community.

The health campaign in Plovdiv was held on the streets of Stolipinovo. The project manager and health expert had personal meetings and conversations with the local Roma people while handing out brochures about the project as well as other information materials with health education content. The health mediators in Stolipinovo and Kuklen delivered lectures on "Health Insurance" and "Obligatory Immunizations and Reimmunizations for Infants and Children". Gülezar Sadak is health mediator in Stolipinovo. She has many years of fieldwork experience on a number of social projects in Stolipinovo, including at the local Community Support center. Well-accepted by everyone here, Gülezar has been working for more than two months on the ZOV project, helping local residents to access healthcare more easily.

Три месеца – от април до юни – продължи в Русе четвъртата информационна кампания за превенция на трафика на хора, организирана  в рамките на Програма ЗОВ.  Кампанията "Да приключим с робството" бе организирано от Сдружение БРТИМ, местен партньор по ЗОВ в сътрудничество с местната комисия за борба с трафика на хора – Русе.

Кампанията беше насочена към повишаване на информираността и създаване на нетърпимост към престъплението трафик на хора, познато като "съвременното робство".  Както и в предишните издания на кампанията целева група бяха ученици от 7 и 8 клас в 5 училища и представители на местните общности в кв. "Дружба" 2 (Селеметя), Русе и населените места в общините Борово и Иваново.

В рамките на кампанията бяха организирани и проведени разнообразни дейности: събития на открито (флашмоб) със символично пускане на балони с послания в небето в знак на съпричастност към жертвите на трафик, проведени в Русе, Иваново, Борово и Обретеник;  тематични дискусионни работилници с ученици в час на класа; изработване и разпространение на интересни информационни материали; фокус-групи с представители на общността; ежеседмично публикуване на кратки факти за трафика на хора в рубриката "Знаете ли, че..." в социалните медии; кутия за свободни мисли, поставена във всяко от петте училища, в която учениците споделиха мислите и позициите си относно трафика на хора; изложба с материали и снимки от кампанията и други.

Краят на кампанията беше отбелязан на 27 юни с работна среща с представители на институциите, ангажирани в борбата с трафика на хора. По време на срещата прокурор Емил Енчев от Районна прокуратура-Русе представи данни и информация за образувани и водени дела за трафик на хора през последните 2 години. Милен Коев от Регионална дирекция "Гранична полиция" - Русе също представи актуалната обстановка по отношение на трафика на хора в региона. Йоана Терзиева – експерт по кампаниите от страна на Сдружение БРТИМ разказа за инициативите, проведени по време на кампанията през последните три месеца в общините Русе, Борово и Иваново.

В срещата взеха участие представители на Община Русе, Областна Администрация - Русе, ОД на МВР - Русе, МКБТХ - Русе, младежи - доброволци към Сдружение БРТИМ, журналисти и гости.

След края на срещата Ивайло Иванов, управител на Сдружение БРТИМ откри изложба на снимки и информационни материали, изработени във връзка с кампанията "Да приключим с робството" във фоайето на Пленарна зала на Община Русе. Изложбата е достъпна за посещение до 30 юни 2017.