Provide Long-Term Mentors to Disadvantaged Youth

Dear friends,

Thank you for your support in these challenging times for all of us.

Thanks to you, during the current school year we will provide an opportunity for students we work with in the virtual classroom to start individual work with their mentor.

Our desires are to create 6 pairs of mentor and mentee. The main directions of work will again be motivation for learning, motivation for work and career orientation. This year, however, we will also focus on developing digital skills. In this way, we want to address the problem of digital inequality, which is very pronounced among young people from underprivileged communities we work with.

In recent weeks we have organized and trained volunteer mentors. Now is the time to encourage students to gather their courage and apply for their mentor in November.

Be safe and healthy

All young people love to play video games, but how many of them have the opportunity to see in practice how to create a video game?

As you know, during the last school term, we managed to connect 5 students from the small town of Novi Iskar with mentors from a leading Bulgarian game development company. This gave students the opportunity to learn how diverse activities are related to game development, maintenance and publishing - game design, graphic design, user experience, sound, music, story and plot, customer support, publishing and distribution of ready-made games.

Depending on the personal interests of the students, they were given individual tasks in the fields of graphic design, game design or business development. They acquired knowledge to work with various technological devices and specialized programs. They practiced reviewing games and marketing posts.

One of the main lessons that the collaboration between students and mentors gave is the knowledge that game development, as in other business areas, is a long complex process that requires time and many stages of development. For the creation and successful implementation of a project it is necessary to build a comprehensive plan.

Setting realistic goals, breaking down large tasks into smaller ones are other valuable lessons that students had the opportunity to learn.

We are excited and look forward to the next school year so that young people, mentors and us as facilitators can apply what we have learned in new interesting practical tasks.