DIGITAL OFFICE
Updated: Mar 27, 2020
This is a video from the passed job shadowing "Connected", which was located in Sofia, Bulgaria. The job shadowing is part of the KA2 project European response in migration and integration - ERMI in which ICDET is partner. The focus of the job shadowing was on Usage ICT, online tools and social Medias in promotion and work with migrants. Enjoy this video and stay tuned for more! :)
Updated: Apr 1, 2020
The week between 12thand 20thof February 2020 youth workers from Portugal, Poland, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy, North Macedonia, Romania, Croatia, Hungary and Lithuania gathered together in the lovely city of Braga in sunny Portugal to take part in the Erasmus+ project “Let them be heard” which was hosted by CONEXAO JOVEM and implemented in cooperation with Euromuevete, TDM2000, TDM 2000 Polska, ICDET, Interaktiva, KKA, Lithuania Liberal Youth, CET Platform Skopje.
Some of us participated in the first part of the project which was a seminar concerning the refugees’ situation and EU migration policies and got introduced to the topic of Forum Theater as a method for social problems. This time the project was a training course and we got deeper into the theater and all the other artistic and creative tools we used to get to know each other, to form good co-working teams and to work on our tasks.
Each new session was full of challenges and required a lot of creativeness, braveness and some craziness. And, of course, the funniest energizers and games that helped us to break the ice even since the first half of day 1.
During the first days we had these “exploring the city” tasks like creating dances and songs or filming a 7-day pantomime weather forecast and acting in scenes from different famous movies directly on the streets of Braga – which brought us a lot of pleasure and laughter and we definitely had a lot of fun! After this, we jumped into some serious presentations such as the situation and all the problems of migrants and youth in our countries – but apparently we realized they are quite common. And we managed to relax with some funny energizers like kissing competition and touching each other with closed eyes, and also some meditation. Then, we had interesting sessions in which we discussed Conflicts – how do we understand them, in how many ways can we react to them, their objectives, causes and consequences, motivation of parties, because in order to have forum theater, we need a conflict first. We do also need a conflict map – to put all the characters into order and with relations between them. We exercised this mapping through analyzing conflicts in famous films like “The lion king”, “Sponge Bob” and “Harry Potter” which prima facie seemed a hard task but in the process of work became clear and easy. After this, we used these new gained skills to create the conflicts in our scenes for Forum Theater, to share out the roles and point the characteristics of our main characters and later, based on this, to write our scripts.
While we had some theater theory lessons for the invention, history and functions of forum and invisible theater, we managed to have a lot of fun with creating group dances, sound theater tasks, shadow following in pairs, pantomimes, meditation with closed eyes in teams. And so on, and so on. I had the feeling that these various and entertaining tasks didn’t have an end and a new amusing one is hiding behind every corner, on each floor of the building or even on the street, where we actually loved to rehearse our scenes!
We also didn’t forget to observe the beautiful city of Braga in the breaks, to prepare delicious traditional foods and drinks for our intercultural presentations and to spend an unforgettable free afternoon with friends, when some of us went to the famous cathedral Bom Jesus, another part – to Guimarães, the city where Portugal was found and the others – to a famous shopping center.
At moments it seemed like an endless journey of breaking the ice, going out of our comfort zones and rediscovering our creative and artistic selves but it all went so quickly that we didn’t realize how we found ourselves revealing to our “secret friends”, putting the last goodbye letters in our friends’ envelopes and… sadly buying the way-back tickets to the airport.
Special thanks to our trainers Michal and Aga, our host Henrique, our Portuguese friends helping with the logistics and organizational stuff and thanks to Erasmus+ that again brought together in one place great people who charged each other with so much positive energy and good vibes.
by Silvia Arsova
Participant in
TC “Let them be heard” in Braga, Portugal
Updated: Apr 1, 2020
I knew I was going to be kind of involved in the field of working with migrants and refugees since I started studying my bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Classical and Modern Philologies in Sofia University. Iranian Studies (or philology with Persian language and its dialects Farsi and Dari) is connected with the global problem of migration and refugee crisis due to the big amount of Iranian and Afghan people, fleeing their countries even though there is no war therein. Firstly, I didn’t have any experience in this sphere, except for attending a Mentor program for refugees, helping their social integration, organized by one of the biggest NGO-s working with migrants, i.e. Karitas and participating in Erasmus+ training course on this topic.
This year I’ll be graduating from the university and two facts lead me to start working in Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria – my previous interest and the desire to practice in my specialty, as a translator. We are a non-profit organization with mission to assist newly recognized refugees in the process of their initial adaptation and integrationin the Bulgarian society.We work on different projects, funded by Ministry of Interior or United Nations High Commissariat of Refugees for example. Our team is divided into social workerswho are psychologists and cultural mediators – translators of Arabic or Persian. We’re working either in our office in Sofia city center or at the territorial units of the State Agency for Refugees under the Council of Ministers, which is “Registration and Reception Center Sofia” - with International Protection Production Departments in the neighborhoods of “Ovcha Kupel”, “Vrazhdebna” and “Voenna rampa”. We work in collaboration with other NGO-s on projects like “Community support to asylum seekers and refugees in Bulgaria”, “Improving access to services for third-country nationals” and so on.
Some of our activities include social mediation program and provision of humanitarian assistance. People can receive support in the process of social adjustment and integration through social consultations and provision of information, translation, accompanying to medical/state/municipal facility, provision of humanitarian aid, administrative assistance, etc. The advocacy and networking activities include cooperation with state agencies and NGO-s, participation in networks, workgroups, studies and partnerships with all stakeholders on national and international levels. The experts in the organization design and conduct trainings on multicultural approach in social counseling, violence survivors, crisis intervention and traumatic experiences, child protection, case management, burn-out prevention and prevention of social exclusion for vulnerable groups. The fundraising and publicity activities are focused towards development and implementation of comprehensive strategy to work on awareness rising and sensitivity building among the society on the topics related to refugees, social adaptation and integration. The publicity and fundraising activities include also attracting volunteers, organization of social events, donation campaigns and communication with individual and corporate donators.
The third-country nationals can also receive a wide range of services such as consultations with a lawyer or psychotherapist, Bulgarian and English language courses, training sessions on getting acquainted with Bulgarian law, employment and legal relations in the country, assistance in drafting a CV and cover letter, organizing job fairs, socialization through cooking in a bread house, craft art activities, etc.
In the process of gaining more experience from my work, we go to different trainings - internal intervision; together with other organizations; trainings of UNHCR and the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings; monthly supervisions with the psychologists of the organizations and others. Photos below present me and our beneficiaries in cooking activity, me and my colleagues having supervision and some children attending activities.
by Silvia Plamenova
Participant in
Seminar “Let them be heard” in Braga, Portugal
