The project helps rebuild the community relations and make up for the social incoherence of the multiethnic community in Alfatar Municipality, caused by the COVID lockdown. We, the project partners, will bring together the locals and empower them to creatively campaign in aid of their children’s access to digital educational devices. For the campaign events to grow, we'll reach out to more stakeholders, encourage them to 'tech invest' in the diverse Alfatar kids and have a thriving community.

Municipality of Alfatar, Silistra District, North-East Bulgaria

The project aims to counteract the disruption of community relations in the multiethnic Alfatar Municipality, caused by the COVID lockdown. We bring together people who have not been active citizens for quite a while and empower them to shape the future of the community. This initiative will help the student-parent-teacher community to engage with the local authority, elected council members and businesses to discuss and invest in the technological development and education of the local school children. It will empower and motivate them to become active members of the society through civic campaigning initiatives. That's how the diverse community members will restore their ability and willingness to unite in aid of the local kids to spur future development.

The project main target is the local school community. These are about 150 members coming from diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds, but whose social differences have been deepened by the COVID crisis. Also important is the educational division among the local students after the unsuccessful on-line education. Therefore, 100 local students are the second target group. Both groups will be involved in workshops for capacity building for campaigning. Then during the school year, we will help them organise and perform creative campaign events in aid of digitalisation. By on/off line means the project will fuel the participation of 50 other stakeholders, incl. institutions, politicians and businesses.

At first, the project team organizes shared space ‘Parents’ corner’ and involves 50 parents in 2 workshops to improve parents’ capacity and increase their motivation to responsibly participate. Then, we initiate the school community dialogue, by involving parents-students and teachers in creative on-line and off-line awareness-raising activities, during which the students design and use a web-site, poster, logo, and a flyer. The goal is to showcase the artistic skills of the multicultural students’ community and announce the launch of the fundraising campaign. After that, the proposal organizes 5 innovative charity events around the Human rights calendar and by on/off line means fuels the inclusion of 50 other stakeholders, incl. institutions, politicians and businesses. During the events, we launch discussions on different possibilities for community development. That’s how the project develops the knowledge, skills, values and motivation of 100 students and their parents, local authorities and institutions to participate actively in civic life and raise funds for the school . At the same time, it attempts to raise the responsibility of the local decision-makers and businesses on schooling policy & future employability of the young people (especially Roma) from the area and therefore works for social cohesion.

Through the workshops, the awareness-raising activities and charity events we expect to
provide digital resources (devices, Internet access) to support learning and improve the quality of schooling. Apart from the financial support from the project for such devices, due to the community efforts we will have doubled their number to technologically improve the education process. We will have trained 50 parents to improve their civic capacity. We will have involved 50 stakeholders, incl. institutions, politicians and businesses and 50 other parents in the campaign events as well as 100 local students of ethnic background, incl. Roma. The community will have used some participatory tools to impact educational policy, support young people's employability & bring to social cohesion.

Our project builds on several strengths: First, our NGO is very well aware about the community's culture, economic conditions, social and political networks. We have significant partnership history here and have established lasting trustful relations. Next, we are planning to launch creative on/off-line awareness-raising activities, during which the students will be encouraged to design marketing tools, which showcase the artistic skills of the multicultural students’ community. The tools are to be used for 5 charity events to attract donations. Finally, we'll apply the cultural complementarity model and involve diverse people to work together within the community to attain mutually agreed goals that would be difficult to accomplish via separate efforts.

Our core team is also shaped around the idea of the cultural complementarity. We have planned to involve diverse people to work together. These are two people from our NGO: ( the project manager and the account), one parent from the parents' community and 2 facilitators from the school staff. That's how we have 3 cultural groups: BG, Turkish and British. Additionally we will have Roma parents as promoters. That's how we will combine our efforts to demonstrate that diversity brings more possibilities for future development and social cohesion.

1. project management ( project manager, art manager, 2 trainers, 2 facilitators and accountant) -14 000 EURO
2. publicity-2000 EURO
3. 2 workshops for 50 parents - 2000 EURO
4. Resources for 5 charity events - 3000 EURO
5. Setting up and maintaining a web site – 2000 euro
6. Handbook, presenting the project activities and print-1200 EURO
7. 10 laptops for the Parents’ Corner inside the school – 5000 euro

Firstly, we'd like to receive feedback on the project clarity. We'd appreciate to have comments on the cultural complementarity model if implemented by a NGO: what works, what doesn't. Finally, we'd appreciate sharing of experience/practice on community fund-raising campaign in aid of diverse kids.