SUMMARY

SEED II represents the concrete follow up of the current SEED project. The motivation to launch a second phase of SEED project was due to the positive impact which is being currently manifested in the three communities in relation to the participation and inclusion of the target group, education institutions responsibility and responsiveness as well as parents support and involvement.

SEED II further addressed the aim to spur the involvement, active participation and cooperation between Roma and Romanian youngsters. The project involved 10 volunteers from 8 Programme Countries (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Portugal and Sweden), and has been implemented in Craiova for 9 months, in three locations: Mofleni, Popoveni and Catargiu

SEED II was divided in 4 main phases: A training and preparation phase (Pre Departure Training, Capacity Building Training, On Arrival Training), A cultural and organizational accommodation phase (Community Discovery), Community Activities Phase and a Monitoring and Evaluation Phase (Mid term and Final Evaluation, Monthly Evaluations and Weekly meetings)

The methods that were used during the project focused on sport activities and non formal outdoor activities (games, camping, etc).

 
Location: S.E.E.D II shall be implemented in Gorj Counties in the following sites:
- Dorj county: Mofleni, Popoveni and Catargiu

The project objectives:

Development of activities that stimulate the personal development of both volunteers as well as the target group and contribute to the further consolidation of the process launched and piloted by the current EVS project in order to increase the cooperation between Roma and Romanian Youngsters, raise local institutions awareness towards the Roma issues and further responsabilise them, break prejudices and raise tolerance.

March

Capacity Building Programme

The Capacity Building Programme it is done in order to enable better integration of volunteers into the hosting placement to establish good relationships between volunteers but also with the hosting organization, with other words it is done for get to know each other and for breaking the ice and for establishing and planning the activities that the volunteers will done in Romania.

The hosting organization decided to do it because is very important because beside the goal of socialization the Capacity Building Programme helps the volunteers to easier assimilate the inter-cultural shock and to provide personal development plans and action plans. The Capacity Building Programme for the project SEED 2 had three parts. The first and the third part consisted in trainings done in a pension near the mountain area of Romania, and the second part was the Community Discovery that consisted in two weeks in which the volunteers walks around their commnuty in order to try to know it .

April

Rom Day, 8 april

We informed the children and the school about our first event “Roma Day” and rehearsal a dance with the children. We also prepared Roma flags that the children made in one of our classes. We taught them the Roam anthem “Gelem Gelem” and prepare them who to walk, talk and act when they were on a stage. We prepared the children and meet them in front of the school with traditional clothes to celebrate. Mikaella was hosting and Mario translating the children was really good and had a lot of fun.

„The day before I noticed that a host was missing, so I took the roll as a host and wrote a manuscript over what I can say between the performances. We prepared the children and meet them in front of the school with traditional clothes to celebrate. I was hosting and Mario translating the children was really good and had a lot of fun. The volunteer performance that I had to force the volunteers to participate in went well also.”

Mikaella

May

Europe Day, Craiova, 9th of May 2011

All of the volunteers in the Dolj and Gorj countries got together in Craiova to celebrate the International Day of Europe. The event reunited over 80 volunteers in total and took place in the centre of Craiova where the volunteers set up stands and made it become, for one day, “Europe Street”. On the Europe Street the activities were :

- Music ( Dj, Live music, Volunteers perform music from their countries, Street musicians);

-Street performance (Dance Battle, Graffiti on a big wall made of wood, Circus, Performance with fire, Joggling, Acrobatic, Street art);

- Flashmob & Reality theatre ( theatre performed without the viewers knowing that they are watching a theatre scene and not a real life scene);

- Workshop (Big map with pictures – puzzel, Europe Twister, Body paint, Making flags, Dance workshops – Salsa, Africans dance, Tango….);

- Information about EUROPE (Information tents about different countries, Information about EVS, Information about Erasmus, Information about Xstudents, Couch surfing);

-Anti rasism campaign.

The Event was a success but without so many visitors and weather conditions. But the event was well planed and structured event with a lot of fun interesting activities. But there was not so much support from participants.

June

June

Children Day, Craiova, 1st of June 2011

1st of June, International Childrens day was the perfect ocassion for the volunteers to do a big event for the children. For this reason we all decided to make a big special event just for the children in one of the parks close to the three communities, Parcul Tineretului, where we could invite people from the three schools we have been working in.

The event started at 12 o`clock and the children were greeted by clown distributing candy and balloons. Then the children could take part in the different activities that were going on simultaneously like face painting with Magali, Mikaella and Baiba, clothes painting with Nicla and Esteban, building kites with Marcello, sport games like egg races, bag race, with Daniel and a big Treasure Hunt organised by Andrejs.

Football Tournament

For the purpose of networking the 3 commnities involved in the project and to get the children from the 3 schools to know each other and play together we organized a football tournament between Popoveni, Mofleni and Catargiu.

The volunteers were doing football trainings for a long time with the children so they decided it was time to test their teams. Marcello and Andrejs were coaching the Catargiu team, Daniel a team from Mofleni and Guntram together with Massimo coached the Popoveni team.

The children gor very involved in the game and the tournament was a huge success in terms on making them more tolerant to each other and building team spirit. At the end of the day everyone went home with custom made team T-shirts and diplomas for participating.

July

Summer Camp, Tismana,July 2011

Day 1. Presentations games.

We had different games for the children to get to know each other better, We had the game with one ball through in the air the person screams one name of one person and he or she have to caught the ball before it hits the ground.

News paper

Before someone hit you on the knee with a newspaper you have to say another name on a person and the person with the newspaper have to try to hit him on the knee. When someone succeeds it’s the other person’s time to have the news paper. The children was tired after a long trip from Craiova but seem to be happy to find so many new friends, and this games was a good opportunity for them to get to know each other and break the ice.

Day 2. Energizers and Workshop.

To Keep a good energy around the children we make some dances/gymnastic and games called “energizers”. One of the most popular games through the children was Luna-Dominica. The children sit in one circle and have the hands in each other hands, the first kid start “Luni-Duminica” and hit the hand in the neighbor hand and say “Martie” the last day of the week the kid have to hit the neighbors hand before he or she takes it away.

Under the summer camp we had energizers like “Head knees and toes” (Gymnastic), The Hug game, Run marathon, Dances like Macarena, Las Ketchup and the Rumanian penguin dance.

Concentration games

The workshop was about concentration. We had a lot of thin sticks in different colors the kids pick up one stick from the ground without move the others. This requires patient and focus, and was a challenge for many of the children but they manage to play the game after the rolls.

Day 3. Workshop Shadow theater.

This had a good result, the children follow the instructions to create a mask with paper and colors and then come up with a theater play together with their new friends from the camp to show the other groups. It was fun to see that the children had fun with playing theater and being creative.

Cinema

After an intensive day with a lot of activities it’s good for a movie to calm down with before its time to sleep. We were watching “Tom and Jerry” and the Disney animated movie “Mega Mind” who is about what it means to be a hero.

The last night did we have a little party with cake that the children made and a big surprise cake for one of the children that had his birthday. We were dancing playing music games like Limbo, dancing chairs and follow the leader.

In the end of the party wear we looking at the pictures from the summer camp at the big screen, to remember the fun moments that we had together.

September

Back to school, September 2011

The “Back to school” Campaign consisted of 2 phases that united under the common goal of getting the children back to school after the summer vacation. One of the main problems identified was always the lack of school presence from the children so in the first phase the volunteers went door to door to talk to the families and the children about the importance of continuing studies and going to school daily.

Because we wanted to go beyond rethorics and just promoting an idea we also tried to give a little help to the poor families that had children in the schools. One of the issues that prevented the poor families from sending the children to school was the fact that they had no clothes for the children. Thus, the volunteers organized a social campaign where they spread flyers and posters promoting the donation of clothes for the poor families.

This campaing was quite a success as we managed to gather a lot of clothes that we later distributed to the families

October

Integration activities, the whole month of October in the Park

In Craiova there are three Rom Communities but they are not integrated with the Romanians people and each other, also a lot of children never leave the community. So I propose to make some activity to create an opportunities for different communities to met each other.

The goal was the integration of the three communities, the integration of Rom and Romanian people, to show the children the city (Craiova is them city but they don’t know it) and to show the people of Craiova the children (to show that they can be like all others children and can go in the most common place of the city…the people of Craiova used to see the Roma children only to begging and this can create the stereotype).

We prepare some simple activities to spend time all communities together: we went in the park to make open air games (Relay race; Break the balloon; Lines game; Flag game; Statue game; Tag Game; Color game ; Blind game; Bag jump; Penguin; Patetos game).

Cinema day at school, October 2011

This activity has been desire to try building friendly relations between communities of gypsies (Mofleni and Popoveni), to socialize, to play, try to follow some rules to see a movie. So we proposed to ourselves to create an activity with the children to opportunities for met each other.