ESC: Each One Teach One

Asociatia Sfanta Familie din Nazaret seeks to build an inclusive community for each family and for each member separately, children, young people and adults. In this sense, the organization's mission is to build and implement projects through the voluntary involvement, driven by values such as togetherness, solidarity, empathy. Currently, the organization is running specific projects for children, young people and parents. For children, we manage an after-school day center dedicated to children between the ages of 6 and 15, a center that we run for 8 years. Here, through donations and exclusive involvement of the people in the community, we manage to offer lunch five times a week for 40 children. In addition to supporting school integration, each child has a team of mentors and volunteers who support him in his personal development, focusing on social and emotional skills. In 2018-2019, 55 volunteers and 5 mentors were involved in this program and their retention in the program was 96%. This project is called Each One Teach One, because we empower community members, especially young people, to become part of the solution for children at risk. Also, monthly for children that are in the state protection system, from 3 placement centers in the region we have a campus day, where we offer them for a day, recreational activities and learning activitties. In 2018-2019 we worked with 55 young people, who,ve been involved in recurrent volunteering activities, in personal development sessions. From September 2018, we started to develop a community with and for young people; and starting with August 2019, with the completion of the setting up of a new youth center, we started the project Empowering Youth Academy, which mainly involves empowering young people to become an active members of the communities. At this moment we work with 70 young people, aged from 14 to 33 years old. In the Empowering Youth Academy project, every youth has the responsabilitty and engagement to work 10 h per month in volunteering activity and to invest 8 h per month in their personal and professional development, having the possibility the participate in personal development sessions organised pe us. This sessions are aiming to develop in young people social and emotional skills, civic skils and leadership skills. The main purpose of the Empowering Youth Academy is to empower young people to become agents of solidarity and active citizens in their community now and in the futures. Three times a year, we organize for our young people, several-day exploration expeditions where they meet people, organizations and civic actions that are an example of good practices in the educational, environmental, cultural, civic and social field from which they can be inspired. Every summer we organize tree tipes of activities. A summer camp where our young people are challenged to become the change they want to see in the world in a certain community. A summer school developed by our young people from Empowering Youth Academy, in order to raise awareness of the importance of civic involvement, for young high school students. And for children and teenagers from rural area, another team from EYA organize a non-formal summer school about the importance of education in their lives. For parents we have a project in place for mothers who are on maternity leave, giving them space for meeting and getting involved in the community. All these projects are based on the voluntary involvement of over 100 participants, each having a minimum of 10 hours of volunteering per month and 8 hours of personal development, with minor exceptions.