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Разкрий своя потенциал
Разкрий своя потенциал
Start date: Jun 17, 2014,
End date: Dec 31, 2014
PROJECT
FINISHED
“Reveal Your Potential” is a youth exchange project by means of which outsiders aged between 13 and 18 are going to acquire new skills and knowledge in order to get more self-confidence and faith in the personal potential. The encounter between boys from different countries but having similar problems would help them out to realize their European identity and overcome their rough background.
Students at “Angel Uzunov” Educational Boarding School (EBS), located in the town of Rakitovo, are going to be involved in the project on the part of the Bulgarian side. The Educational Boarding School is a specialized institution for boys aged between 7 and 18 previously accused of criminal offences. Most of the students in the Boarding School are of Gypsy and Turkish origin, coming from poor families with no opportunities of future progress. The teenagers are under a regime of limited allowance to go out of the boarding school and rarely do they access the outer world. The lack of experience in life leads to a lack of perspective for advance after they leave the institution. The specifics of these institutions and social stereotypes result in minimum access to external social environment and limited chances for any personal or social realization of the teenagers. Due to its characteristics and geographical location, the boarding school is neither of interest for corporate and other types of businesses that may venture such kind of social responsibility, nor for non-governmental organizations.
On the part of our Belgian partner the participants have analogical traits – these are teenagers with deviant behavior who have a blur idea of their surroundings, have been placed at specialized institutions in Belgium and have no experience for communication with their coevals on an international level. The differences between them and the teenagers from “Angel Uzunov” EBS are but a few – the material conditions they live in, the language they speak and the counselors that take care of them. Both groups share the same grave problems yet in this early age of theirs – risk-liable environment in the past, lack of future plans, confusion and anxiety in their everyday life. That is the reason why it is of great significance for the youngsters to acquire new knowledge instead of material goods, alternative instead of neglect, and support instead of compassion.
With respect to the above mentioned problems the aims imposed are:
• Increase of the motivation and the self-confidence of the participants
• Prevention of future criminal activities
• Creating possibilities for successful integration.
In order to achieve the set goals we are proposing to have the exchange period split in the following trends:
- „European integration through social adaptation” – we suggest that the activities in this section involve establishing communication activities for both groups, raising communicative tolerance, exchange of valuable practices based on the intercultural integration of the participants, i.e. learning from each other about the culture, cuisine, rituals and traditions, as well as encouraging the interest to new cultural environments.
- “Bio-home” - the activities will provide for constructing a positive attitude on the part of the students towards the natural environment, feeling the spirit of nature and realizing how important it is to keep nature clean and to take care of and respect the natural resources. The participants are going to pile up knowledge about what they are allowed to take from or give to nature by means of activities intended at a sustainable way of living.
- “Me, you, us, and the world” - trainings for elaboration of team-work skills, evaluation and self-assessment/reflection, planning and forecasting of their own future, building of leading skills and personal responsibility.
In the exchange will participate 16 boys in unequal position aged between 13 and 18 years as well as two counselors from each country (4 counselors from Bulgaria and Belgium). Apart from the needs of the group will be involved two translators and trainers team.
“Reveal Your Potential” is going to decrease the social isolation of the participants by means of the successful activities during the exchange program which will help them to overcome their former negative experience and rough background. For them this initiative is going to be “successful experience” that could change their attitude towards their own lives for the better. It will teach them to be responsible for their environment and will assist them in orienting themselves. Moreover, their encounter with other young men who have found themselves in a similar to theirs social situation will make them feel understood and accepted.