Provide Education for Talented Roma Children

Children of our programme grow and they come with the need to give something to their community. This initiative has created project „Young Roma Leaders“, within they run workshops at schools and learn to advocate the interests of Roma children. We wanted to create space for young leaders to develop and motivate them, so we have created the project of youth foreign exchange „Crossing Own Borders". The educational mobility environment aims to promote their participation in democratic life in Europe and in the labor market, foster their language skills, active citizenship, intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and solidarity. An important part of youth exchange is mutual intercultural learning.

We organized youth exchange for the first time in our history. The young people from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Norwayand Slovakia met in Slovak capital city, Bratislava. They spent 6 days (25.8.-31.8.2017) full of learning, acquaintance and unforgettable experiences. The Project Crossing Own Borders was conducted through the program Erasmus+and the patronage of this successful event was taken over by Andrej Kiska, the President of the Slovak Republic.

It was the leaders, who planned the program on days. Already in this first phase, they communicated in English. They were introduced through videos and photos on social networks. To get the most out of our cultures, the program has been set up by other countries every day. The program was designed according to the set thematic areas.

The first was the host country, Slovakia, with the topic Roma people. Young Roma leaders prepared a presentation about Slovakia connected with the tasting of traditional Slovak dishes and snacks. „Bryndzové halušky“, Slovak cheeses, but also „horalky“ and especially „kofola“ have been successful! J They created City Game Bratislava tailor made. From the Bratislava castle they headed to Eurovea Square, where our guests had a surprise in the form of the festival „Cigánsky bašavel“ (Gypsy Bashavel - festival of our organisation Divé maky, o.z.).

The other days were designed by foreign countries. The Norwegians have prepared a variety of competitions, games, a quiz, and also practicing of dance choreography. The topic of the day was Creativity and Culture. Within the same thematic area, a group of young people from Lithuania has touched us by musical performance and workshops. Bulgarians surprised us with beautiful traditional costumes, which they brought us straight from Bulgaria. They played a theatre, danced folk dances and even borrowed costumes to the others. The topic of their presentation was Inclusion and equity. The topic of Hungarian group was Roma people and others minorities. They have revealed the ingredients of  food and their national culture.

All the groups were very responsible for creation of the program. Participants spent days full of lectures, experiential learning, tasting national specialties, music or dancing. They have expanded their English vocabulary, made a new friendships. In addition to these great experiences, participants of youth exchange have been awarded the Youthpass - certificate, which can help them to further plans.

At the beginning, there was the fear of the communication, but this language barrier broke very quickly. Even those who controlled English at a lower level tried to actively engage in conversation around each other and understand others as much as possible. Despite cultural differences, they found their way and created a friendly atmosphere. The fact that they really had a strong relationship with each other has also confirmed their emotional departure. We believe that we will see our new foreign friends in the future and that this pilot project will be continue.

Thanks to you, our great sponsors and supporters we can organise a lot of events for these children and youth every year. There they can work on improving their talents, skills and personalities. We can also organise small trips, train our mentors (who are the second parents of our children) and also deal with unexpected expenses and hard life situations of our children, that unfortunately sometimes occurs. 


Thanks to your support and your donations via GlobalGiving we change lives of talented Roma children who need it the most. We would be very pleased if you became our donor and support our activities. With your help we can create new generation of Roma- educated, hardworking, confident and proud.

We thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts for your support :-)

Yours 

Divé maky, o.z.