February 2020

Sălătrucel NEET Club

            Sălătrucel is another village in Vâlcea county where we continued the activities with youngsters. It has four villages (Pătești, Sălătrucel, Seaca and Șerbănești), it neighbours Călimănești resort and has Cozia Masiff nearby.  From the first days of activities we were welcomed by the mayor of the village, the principal of the local school and the manager of the National Touristic Promoting and Information Centre in Vâlcea County from Sălătrucel. The activities made with the youngsters has interculturality, traditions, self-awareness and team work as topics.  We had a topic each day. In the last day, the students, parents and authorities offers us a show, gave us traditional food and products, presented us the surroundings. Along the weeks spent together, almost every day the youngsters offered us small sweet surprises which pleasured our taste buds.   We were impressed by the students of this school and Răzvan remained in our memory. He is a youngster in a wheel chair, jolly, smiling and hard-working. And we liked them because either in school – during classes or in the break time –, or at home, in their free time, the youngsters are united, they don’t discriminate, help each other and Răzvan is not a disabled young man, but their friend, their colleague. Our experience in Sălătrucel convinced us that the choice of our logo is no longer random, but is becoming reality: Be part of something bigger than yourself!

Vlădești Library

For three days, we stayed in Vlădești village, where, as a result of some preliminary discussions, we agreed to offer our support in rearranging the library. Our work consisted in arranging all the books alphabetically, according to subjects, on the appropriate shelfs. There were thousands books and the domains were various: from children books and novels to science, history, medicine, encyclopedias etc. Even though we are at our first experience of this kind, even though it was not easy for us because the majority of books were in Romanian, the result made us very happy. And three days passed so fast! We love to be volunteers and we offer our time to develop communities! These days were tiring, but, at the same time, the pleasure of working in a team and also the joy of knowing that we leave “marks” behind us in the community brought also satisfaction. It was a pleasure for us to be part of this.

Budești School

            A new week, a new community. This time it was Budești village, one of the biggest villages in Vâlcea county, having 9 villages in its componence and slightly over 6000 inhabitants. The information regarding the community were given by the major of the village, which also told us about the actions undertook by the Budești Local Council in order to encourage the students to increase their learning grades. Thus, prizes consisting in money, trips and bicycles were given to the worthy students each year, while their number increases. The activities with the youngsters in Budești were focused on non-formal and environment education, being both indoor and outdoor. During the indoor activities, we initiated communication, personal development, anti-bullying, anti-discrimination, anti-stereotypes and intercultural activities. The outdoor activities were focused on the development of sports and team spirit.  The last day was reserved to the protection of the environment. Together with the students and the teachers, we’ve split in teams and cleaned the entire main road of the village (around 7-8 km). At the end of the activity, we were welcomed by the mayor, which thanked us and offered us mărțișoare (a Romanian spring-welcoming tradition). For us, it represented a new thing regarding Romanian culture – Mărțișor and its significance. It was a full week for us, with a lot of joy, both for us and for the youngsters here, a week in which we managed to be involved and also to acknowledge the connections between the local authorities.