Semestrial report of the project "We form the Future!"

Project Objective

1. To develop socio-educational services for a minimum of 945 children and young people aged 6 to 24 years old in the communes of Nicolae Bălcescu, Răcăciuni, Filipeni, and Mărgineni (Bacău county) and the municipality of Roman (Neamț county), during the 30 months of the project, through the implementation of a complementary education program, in the day centers of the partners and the schools of the targeted localities.

2. Development of support services for members of the communities involved - minimum of 100 parents/legal guardians, 5 representatives of town halls, 5 social workers, and 50 other members of the communities - aimed at developing parenting skills, improving the parent-child and parent-school-authorities relationship and developing community spirit.

3. Increasing the level of training of 100 teachers from Nicolae Bălcescu, Răcăciuni, Filipeni, Mărgineni, and Roman municipalities on inclusive education by providing training and support programs, using both formal and non-formal methods, with an emphasis on non-formal education methods.

Status of implementation of project activities

During the first 6 months of the project, the project implementation teams were formed, separate knowledge meetings of the specialist teams gathered from all three partner organisations (social workers, psychologists and therapists, specialised educators, social mediators and social workers) were held and the following procurement procedures were carried out:

- PP, P1, P2: procedure no. 1 purchase of food and catering; following this procedure, P1 contracted catering services; none of the partners received offers for the purchase of food;

- PP, P1, P2: procedure No 2 for the purchase of food products; following this procedure, all the partners concluded contracts for the purchase of food products in March;

- PP, P1: carried out procedure 2 for the purchase of office supplies and stationery; purchase contracts were signed in March;

-PP, P1: carried out the procurement procedure for IT equipment; PP signed the purchase contract.

Compared to the initial planning, there was a delay of 1 month in the procurement of food for beneficiaries, due to the non-submission of offers in procurement procedure 1 and the need to repeat the procedure. Hot food was provided in January and February in all the day centres of the project from the partners' own sources. Since March, hot food in the centres is provided from the project budget.

Each of the partner organizations:

• carried out planned after-school activities in each center: 1) hot meal serving, extra help with homework under the supervision and support of educators, 2) sports activities, 3) creative activities, 4) health education activities, 5) computer literacy activities, 6) mentoring skills development activities.

• Organized all the necessary logistics for the organization of the listed activities and made sure that the activities are carried out according to the list of activities, the calendar of activities, and the budget.

1. After-school activities: Since January, in the day centers of the 3 partner organizations, children received a hot meal, did their homework supervised by educators and volunteers, and participated in recreational activities and activities aimed at developing independent living skills.

• Development of life skills through sport - a tool for social integration and inclusion, to increase inclusion and awareness of diversity within the group. 6 types of activities were carried out in all-day centers of the partner organizations.

• Organisation of creative activities in workshops. In all the day centers of the partner organizations, creative activities were carried out such as hand-made, painting on glass, folk dance, and theatre, in which all the children enrolled in the day center program participated.

• Sexual health education activities; these activities took place in all day centers - except the day center in Răcăciuni (P1) in January and February.

• Computer literacy and internet safety activities, focusing on media literacy, selecting information from the internet, and useful use of the internet and technology. In January, throughout the online school, in all PP and P2 day centers children were also present to participate in the online school courses. Thus, in addition to the thematic activities foreseen for A.2.5, intensive digitalization activities were carried out for the beneficiary children to ensure their participation in school courses. Thematic activities were organized in all day centers, except for the P1 day center in Răcăciuni.
• Development of mentoring skills. Mentoring skills development activities were carried out in the PP day centers. PP selected 12 children to participate in the mentoring program.

Context

During the preparation phase of the project proposal, the needs analysis showed that digitization in the schools involved was a priority need, both in terms of skills and equipment; the digitization activities of the "Shaping the Future!" project respond to a need that is now urgent.

In the context of the pandemic, which has limited children's physical access to school and made it substantially more difficult for children from poor backgrounds to access education due to poor infrastructure, communication with schools has improved beyond expectations: we are seeing greater openness and engagement from school representatives, from principals to teachers.

The partnership between the three partner organizations - YANA Foundation, St. John Calabria Foundation, and Favor Association - is being carried out under the terms of the partnership agreement and the grant contract. Each of the three partners makes every effort to implement the activities undertaken to the highest quality standards. Communication between the partners is effective. There is a continuous exchange of best practices and intensive collaboration between the various teams of specialists within the three organizations to standardize the project activities in all the day centers involved.

 "Inclusive Community"

The specific objective to which the "Inclusive Community" activity contributes is to develop support services for members of the communities involved - for a minimum of 200 parents, 5 representatives of the town halls, and 5 social workers - aimed at developing parenting skills, services to improve the parent-child and parent-school-authorities relationship, reducing alcohol consumption, preventing violence and developing community spirit.

During the reporting period, the partner organizations cooperated with local authorities interacting with young people (local police, social workers, etc.) and representatives of companies.  

P2 organized a round table with the help of the local town hall, attended by representatives of the town hall, local police, priests, teachers, social workers, local councilors, and small shop owners to promote the information campaign "Consequences of alcohol and other harmful substances consumption among minors".

100 posters have been posted in the partner communities and PP will organize round tables in Nicolae Balcescu and Margineni.

The partner organizations in the project have the following tasks:

• to organize joint meetings, in each community targeted by the project, between local police, social workers, local councilors, and small shop owners.

• to organize meetings between the local police, social workers, and parents in each of the communities targeted by the project.

• Organise awareness raising campaign in each of the communities targeted by the project on the role of inclusive education in reducing school drop-out.

• to participate in meetings aimed at developing an action plan on the organization of local social services.

• to organize, in each of the communities targeted by the project, joint parent-child-teacher activities: greening actions, tree planting/renovation of neglected areas of interest to children, according to local needs.

• Partner organizations will coordinate the organization of meetings aimed at proposing a set of recommendations for the organization of social services in the communities involved.

Communication activities

Each of the partner organizations in the project will provide the company contracted for communication services with information and photographs for use in articles and press releases.

The communication activities of the project will take place monthly throughout the project. These are described in detail in the communication plan. They will take place both at the headquarters of the 3 partner organizations (Yana-You Are Not Alone Foundation-com. N. Bălcescu, Jud. Bacău, Fundația Sfântul Ioan Calabria, Răcăciuni, Asociația Favor, Filipeni) and at a national level, by distributing information about the project in social media. Beneficiaries: decision-makers and specialists (public entities), decision-makers and specialists from NGOs, and the general public.

1Development of visual identity elements of the project. After the procurement procedure for communication and promotion services (December 2020), and the contracting of services (January 2021), the visual identity elements of the project were developed in January 2021.

2. Project launch conference. On 5.02.2021 the project launch conference was organized online on the ZOOM platform; it was attended by approx. 35 people: representatives of the PO, local authorities, partner schools, priests, members of the governing boards of partner organizations, and members of the project coordination team. The objectives of the project, the desired results, the target groups, the main activities to be carried out in the project, as well as relevant information about EEA and Norwegian grants were presented.

3. Promotion of the activities in 7 project centers: in February information about the project activities in the day centers involved was published on the project website and distributed on the project partners' websites and on the project and PP Facebook and Instagram pages, as well as on the partners' websites and Facebook pages.

4. Social media promotion: will be done through the websites and Facebook and Instagram pages of PP and partner organizations: in February information related to the project activities was published on the project website and distributed on the websites of the project partners and on the Facebook and Instagram pages of the project and PP, as well as on the websites and Facebook pages of the partners.

5. Development of the project website and updating it with articles about the project activities.  

6. Production and transmission of press releases.

 On the occasion of the project launch conference, a press release was published on the websites of two news publications and on the websites, Facebook and Instagram pages of the project partners, from where they were redistributed.