ESC: Organizing a Festival on Inclusive Education 3 in Targu Jiu, Romania

Colour Your Dreams Association has been created in 2016 and it’s operating in Targu Jiu, Gorj County, Romania. It builds on the previous experience of founding members and active staff in the area of working with children and youth with fewer opportunities, with a special focus on children with disabilities and coming from rural, low income families, subject to social exclusion. The founding members are also involved actively as teachers from more than 18 years in the Center School for Inclusive Education. Moreover, they have been trained in international contexts on topics related to European Citizenship, Active Citizenship, training of trainers, youth work methodologies and instruments, anti-discrimination and approach in working with youth with mixed abilities (integration of youth with disabilities in the community, alongside youth with no disabilities), human rights, education for parents of children with disabilities. Therefore, the association is purposely build around the need to contribute towards facilitation of inclusion of youth with fewer opportunities, having an integrated approach by targeting capacity building at the level of youth workers, youth and community stakeholders, such as parents, teachers, but also NGOs and public authorities. The Association is also a founding member of the County Youth Foundation from Gorj, Romania, aimed at providing youth in Gorj county with constant opportunities for personal and professional development. Over the past two years, the association has signed more than 40 partnerships with several institutions and NGOs to meet the organization's goals. One of the most important ones is the one with the County Direction of Sports and Youth Gorj, carrying out all the activities of its Youth Center. In all activities he has collaborated with over 1,500 young people in the community. Colour Your Dreams Association is a nonprofit which aims to organize and carry out activities for lifelong learning, and to initiate actions, programs and projects of nonformal education for skills development of children, youth and adults in areas such as: financial education, communication, career development, coaching, creativity, intelligence development, time management, personal motivation and other areas related to personal and professional development and formal education. In achieving its objectives the association carries out: educational, cultural, art, sport activities, theatre, entrepreneurship, health promotion, environmental protection and sustainable development, economic and social development, organizes courses, seminars, conferences, festivals, workshops, scientific roundtables debates, reading evenings, theatre and film competitions, shows, fairs, publishing educational materials in various fields of training, training and information, studies and research, surveys, educational programs ,,boot camp-type"actions voluntary. We include international mobility in the educational process. It is easier for people of all ages to understand concepts like intercultural learning, cultural diversity, European citizenship, multilingualism, human rights, civic participation when they have the chance to interact with people coming from different cultures, different political, social or economic realities.