One of the most disturbing and underestimated trend of our times is an impact of technology development to our kids' menthal health. We have been observing our kids in front of their screen for a couple of years only to see them being pulled into the digital world even deeper after COVID-19 pandemic burstout. After an introduction of remote teaching it only gotten worse. Communication handicap is already visible. Today we can still prevent it. Tomorrow we will need to cure it.

Bałachy, Gostomko, Lipuska Huta, Lipusz, Northern Poland, Kaszuby region.

The biggest challenge is to make people realise that digital addictions is a problem to talk about. Poles' awareness on technology, video games and internet addiction topic is very limited due to ignorance and a lack of studies and research in this field.

Policymakers' neglegance on this topic is related to polish government's aim at aiding alcohol addiction problems mostly. Taking into the consideration polish long and brutal history with alcohol, not many other addictions have the right attention in Poland, especially digital ones.

The group that is the most exposed and endangered at the same time is primary school children, with the main focus on age between 8 and 12. If we do not set the right standards for communication and social interaction for them at the early ages, their behavioral understanding of most known concepts might be warped.

We believe that rural communities with limited resources and knowledge need to fight the hardest battle against technology development. Even though, we are aware issue is broader to the national or even global scale, we decided to focus on those, whose voice is very seldom heard.

1. Approaching foster families, low income families among community and orphanages in order to identify potential digital addictions among children under their care.
2. Organizing summer camps with elements of psychotherapy will aim at showing kids different ways to spend free time and communicate with their friends. They will take part in sports, treasure hunting games, pottery, music therapy and other cooperative activities to establish sustainable bond between them.
3. Scheduling 1 to 1 discussions with camp participants to better understand the rootcauses of the problem.
4. Inviting parents and caretakers for a hiking adventure to help them understand how to organize time of the young ones in an engaging, interesting and technology-free way.
5. Providing feedback to parents and caretakers on particular problems related to their children that need to be looked at in the future. Giving them guidance and tips on how to succeed in maintaining a life with technology approach on a need to use basis.
6. Summarizing summer camps, individual works and creating an in-depth academic report on digital addiction.
7. Sharing results of research with community members, partner schools, president of Poland and ministry of health.
8. Using digital marketing campaign to maximize awareness.
9. Reaching out to parents and caretakers after 6 months to discuss their children's progress.

A new way of tackling the problem that was ignored for too long. To specify:

- 40 children will have take part in four 7-day summer camps with elements of psychoterapy to fight digital addictions,
- Full academic report will be written and sent to scientific magazines to shed more light on this issue,
- A letter based on the report will be sent to the president of Poland and ministry of health to point out this disturbing trend and initiate change,
- We will create social campaign to raise awareness amongst our targeted community members by organizing 4 "dine and discuss" barbeques in each village,
- We will onboard atleast 30 schools to participate in the project by speaking up on the topic during school's board of education and hanging atleast 10 posters within their facilities.

Since people in village and rural communities are not fully aware of negative impacts of digital technology on our lives, as well as their ability to address difficult topics more broadly is limited, we want this project to be a speaker for their thoughts and an amplifier for their communications.

Having to observe your own child losing a battle to a silent addiction and not being able to help him is the most devastating feeling for a parent or caretaker. Feeling powerless in the matter of the most important person in our lives is something we want to put an end to.

We are deeply rooted to our community for over 20 years. We have been witnessing the dramatic change in quality of life and mutual communication within the community, especially after COVID-19 burstout. The reason why, this is important to us, is because two adult men, who are part of the foundation, carry a burden of video games addiction from their teenage years. We decided to reach out for funding support, because we understand the problem like nobody else. We work together as volunteers to support this cause on a small scale, trying to highlight an importance of the problem with a moderate success. Furthermore, we receive a constant support from a group of psychoterapists with hand-on experience related to digital addictions.

Accommodation and catering: 10400 EUR
Psychotherapists: 3600 EUR
Tour manager: 1650 EUR
Travel expenses: 1800 EUR
Animators (summer camp activities): 2500 EUR
Accounting and Financial reporting services: 400 EUR
Contact persons for schools and beneficiaries: 4000 EUR
Project manager: 4100 EUR
Office supplies and related: 500 EUR
Printing and shipping of posters and leaflets: 1700 EUR
Marketing: 3850 EUR

We would love to hear a feedback on how could we improve this idea. Any comments enriching our endeavour are welcome. On the other hand, if you feel like this idea may help the communities becoming a better place, let us know too. It is good to know we are heading in a right direction!