Description
The project addresses prevention of school dropping out among the Roma in Plovdiv Municipality. The project aims at using mentors to support the teachers and students and prevent dropping out. First, 20 motivated teachers will be selected in 2 schools and 1 university in Plovdiv. Second, they will be trained as mentors of children with deviant behaviour and/or at risk of dropping out using the resilience and professional orientation approach. Third, 3 of them will introduce the approach to more than 100 teachers at university/schools. Next, the trained mentors will be individually supervised for 6 months and will have a 2-day group meeting to share their experience. Fourth, the mentors and the students will prepare 3 exhibitions and present the good practices from mentorship. Finally, the project outcomes will be presented to 30 stakeholders at a round table. The project will benefit the at-risk students, their parents, teachers, education experts and institutions and the public.
Summary of project results
The project was needed to approve and promote the new approach of mentorship for Bulgarian schools to support children at risk. The majority of students at the three target schools have Roma origin and many of them face the risk of early dropping out. At the same time teachers needed to be trained and provided with support to apply new methods for involvement of children in the school life, personal development and integration in the education system. The project helped empower 42 children in 3 schools, the majority of them from Roma origin, with deviant behaviour and/or at risk of dropping out. After the 6th month, the mentors reported the positive results achieved owing to the individual assistance. The project raised the capacity of the pedagogues in the target schools (the correctional boarding school in the town of Rakitovo and two segregated schools in the city of Plovdiv) and trained 20 teachers and educators as mentors as well as introduced to more than 140 teachers, education specialists and students from senior classes the approach of mentorship and the results achieved under the project. The first 42 children who received support through mentorship achieved progress with their performance. The sustainability of results is guaranteed by the training of teachers and educators and the presentations to the staff of the mentorship and resilience approaches as well as the presentation of the achievements of the children and teachers to all the students and pedagogical staff of the three schools. The latter schools will have institutional capacity to continue using mentorship in their work with children with deviant behaviour and/or at risk of dropping out. The project helped enhance the informal partnership between the NGO sector and educational establishments and follow-up sustainability actions are planned such as boosting the capacity of pedagogues and introducing new approaches to the work with children from vulnerable groups. In addition 20 students from the Plovdiv branch of the international organization PTPI were trained in the approaches of mentorship and resilience. The students carry out regular cultural and humanitarian activities with their peers from Homes for Children Left without Parents Care in the area of Plovdiv.
Summary of bilateral results