Description
Thee Parents’ Association from Bucharest No. 179 School, one of the largest schools in Bucharest, has great difficulties in having parents, Roma and Non-Roma, actively involved in school activities. Our project directly targets the development of the number of volunteers, in terms of numerical and ethnic diversity, and promoting the culture of volunteering and parental involvement in volunteer activities within the School no.179 Association. In achieving this objective, the Parents Association has the support of three NGOs - two local Partners, one Norwegian partner. Project beneficiaries: Min. 1,000 parents / caregivers of children from School no.179 Objectives: -Developing a 6-months information campaign targeting at least 1000 parents/carers, centered on the Parents’ Association role and its volunteering opportunities -Implementing 4 training modules and a team building session for 60 volunteering parents/carers (with support from the transnational partner, Bergen Romanian Association) -Involving at least 20 volunteering parents/carers in developing 4 new courses -Organizational development objective for the partners: know-how transfer.
Summary of project results
The project was born in the context of the promoter's need to increase the number of volunteers among parents. The school is one of the most populated schools in Bucharest, having a total number of 1,151 students. In comparison with the number of students enrolled in this school, the number of parents involved was around as low as 50. The purpose of the project has been achieved in terms of developing the volunteer base of the parents association: the number of contributing members and parents involved in the association’s activities has tripled. Through the project, the association has managed to attract a large number of parents as volunteers. This has contributed to improving the range of extracurricular activities that the association can develop in the school environment. During the project, seminars for volunteering parents have been organised and played an important role in mobilising them and other parents. As a follow-up, working groups were created. These working groups implemented different projects, such as obtaining the authorisation for extending the school area (the attic and the sports area) from the city hall, or organising events for the school community: Book Fest, Children's Day and others. Due to volunteers’ mobilisation, activity clubs for children were created: Robotics, Programming, Karate, English Communication and strategic games (Chess and Go). Another notable result of the project is that the Romanian partners achieved new levels in their organisational development process by transferring the experience from the Norwegian partner. Last but not least, being a school with a high percentage of Roma children, the association has also concentrated its activities on Roma parents, who have attended and organised activities that lead to a better integration of Roma children in the school community.
Summary of bilateral results
During the implementation of the project, the Parents Association benefited the support offered by the Romanian Association from Bergen, Norway. The partnership with the Norwegian organization had an important role in achieving the project's purpose. The best result is the transfer of experience from the Norwegian partner. It has consisted in providing information for employees / volunteers of Romanian partner organizations. The experience exchange was also carried during the seminars for voluntary parents, organized in the project. During the seminars, with the support of the Romanian Association from Bergen, the following themes were covered: developing and maintaining networks of volunteers, organizing events to attract volunteers and resources, international resources, case studies from Norway on activities / projects undertaken by volunteers. During the training sessions a very useful set of methods and techniques of team-building was implemented. Also, the Norwegian partner has provided various educational resources for parents: case studies, techniques for attracting volunteers, two films made by associations of parents in Norway, which have been translated and set up so that they can be watched by the parents with children attending School No. 179. Following the project, a long-term partnership with the Norwegian partner is planned, in terms of wider international cooperation in the sector.