September 2019

Treasure Hunt                                                          

            This September we did a Treasure Hunt. It was an interesting method in order to discover communities in Vâlcea county, to directly speak with the ones living there and take contact with local authorities for fulfilling  the given tasks for this activity. Our mission was to find 3 rural communities in Vâlcea county and get more information about them: which kind of problems they have and how they can be solved. The majority of the communities in which we went have social problems. They need social inclusion activities such as intercultural events, workshops, movies and other social methods which will help them increase the social accent in their minds and life routine. The main topic of the activity was to implement the target group with ages from 13 to 30 and speak with them about society.  For this task – the Treasure Hunt, we were split in two teams and had one week to complete it. One team asked the support of CNIPT Vâlcea (the National Touristic Promoting and Information Centre in Vâlcea County), the other chose the communities following a brainstorming. The communities discovered by us were: Berisvlăvești, Sălătrucel, Vlădești, Horezu, Băile Olănești, Păușești-Măglași. We kept in our memory some of the traditions, the folk costumes, the dances presented, legend of the those places, a part of the dishes of every visited area, “Sfântul Nectarie” Monastery, local holiday such as “50 years from the celebration of marriage”, the holiday of the war veterans. In almost every visited area we were welcomed by the mayor of the town or village, we had the joy of tasting and giving opinions on the area’s cuisine. Thus, we tested the bellows cheese, țuică, “taci și înghite” (a Romanian traditional dish), pancakes, mămăligă and other dishes that we can’t remember. We really enjoyed this activity, we managed to discover new places, wonderful people, to start better understanting the place we presently live in. We would like to thank Monica Gheorghiu from CNIPT Vâlcea which helped us complete this task. The feelings of this experience and of the visited places were shared within a presentation held at the Economic High School in Râmnicu-Vâlcea.

World Café

On behalf of to the collaboration between our organisation and “Matei Basarab” National Informatics High School, we were invited to help implement a workshop with bullying and discrimination as topics. The workshop took place within a European project, in which the high school was a partner. Following a brainstorming, we decided that the most challenging and useful way to implement it was using World Café. This method proposes splitting the group and challenging the participants to answer a series of questions, but through rotation and in a certain nr. of questions. At the end, each person who was at the table (the scribe) and noted down the answers of each team, comes in audience (the other participants), reads all the answers, makes a summary of all the answers. After finishing these, come the additions of the participants, if these exist. We created the questions related to bullying and discrimination for the Romanian, Portuguese, Turkish, Bulgarian and Greek participants. The interaction with them was interesting and there were days when we met them outside the schedule. Some of us became friends with a few of them and talked about possible future projects.

Matei Basarab High School

In this month, at “Matei Basarab” National Informatics High School in Rm. Vâlcea we have worked with both primary school students and youngsters and teachers, within an Erasmus+ project, in which we were invited to facilitate activities. Together with the little ones of the college, especially with the sixth graders, we made non-formal activities with mixt topics: discrimination, bullying, getting-to-know-each-other activities, communication. We developed together Alphabet Game, Peace and War, Describe Yourself through Feelings etc. Also, mapped their community and described themselves within society. In these activities, they needed to think how they will show us what they thought about the place they live in. We were surprised by the high level and the very good level on English at such a small age (7-8 years). For the activities with the Erasmus+ project participants we prepared activities proper to their age suitable for the topic of the project: bullying and discrimination. Thus, we had the opportunity to work with Portuguese, Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish and Romanian youngsters. The activities were interactive and were liked by the participants. We spent such a wonderful time there. They were very open to our proposal and we did a great job together.

Family Centre Rm. Vâlcea

Due to our involvement and collaboration in the CNIMB (“Matei Basarab” National Informatics High School) Erasmus+ project, we were invited to visit together the Family Centre Association in Rm. Vâlcea (Asociația Centrul pentru Familie). The Centre was established in 2001 by Maggie Vincent from New Zeeland, who came in Romania as a volunteer. In the present, the centre is managed by psychologist Camelia Păsat, offering three services: social counselling and support, assistance and care, information for the parents. The services offered go towards the families in need, with economic and social issues, having children with ages varying between a few months and pre-school. One interesting aspect found out during the visit was that the centre offers free courses for the parents.  In the end, we wanted and received permission to spend a short period of time with the children that were present in the centre. It was an interesting visit and we were glad to be part of it.