Rural areas, don’t have same recourses but they’re open for cooperation which showed remarkable results. Min.15 teachers will be trained in themes about talents and kids potentials through online educations and mentor meetings in person. We’ll target at least 30 children from high risk of poverty families (age 15-24, with 3 or more children whose parents don’t work or recently lost their jobs) focused on their professional education, building up their self-esteem through detailed activities.

Rural area Slavonia region(Suhopolje municipality as 3rd category of Areas of Special State Concern)

Dispersed population,need of programs based and focused on building up the strengths and acknowledging potential.Learning about ourselves makes us able to understand our life mission and mission of others. Building up individuals we build community that is going to show proactivity and specific actions, such as volunteering or organizing events.Community showed openness to new experiences, people embrace new programs and accept it with positive attitude.Networking stakeholders who recognize talents gives higher chance for kids to develop.Youth living in families with 3 or more children (3+ families),unemployed parents in rural area are in triple jeopardy of deviant behavior,they lack high quality programs (and non-formal education), many of them move out and tend to stay in big citties.

Direct target population: teachers (n=15) and youth (16-24 living in 3+families and/or unemployed parent/s) in Suhopolje. Activities would go at the same time with 2 different coordinators (1 local,1 from Zagreb).Teachers showed great interest in our programs because they were introduced to specific and measurable tools they can use for themselves and kids especially.Families with 3 kids (or more) tend to have less quality time for individual approach and situation can be more intense if parents have financial programs.Triple jeopardy can be prevented with education and with giving possibilities to young people to learn and grow in safe environment. Indirect population: classroom children of teachers, children’s and youth families, other teachers, organizations that will help with actions.

Gather teachers and choose (n=15) for one year education, personally inform them and introduce about main goals of project, rights and obligations for the project. Methods using will be online educations and online workshops about kids talents (specific steps and activities how to nurture talents), individual support for each teacher, mentoring workshops (in person), actions with kids based on talents educations.Find 30 young people (age of 16-24) together with school directors and Center for social care Virovitica, contact them personally, inform them and motivate in person. Peer to peer online groups, online education based on individual talents, individual counseling with coordinator, planning specific actions individually or in group, once per month online mentor meeting (all together)

One teacher can change the world to the kid and then one kid can change the world being authentic. Benefits of active citizenship will be seen directly through actions that will occur spontaneously during and after project. Teachers will have tools how to encourage and children and they will be able to notice and direct certain interests in kids during and after classes as result of 1year education and mentoring groups. They will be able to inform parents about children potential (min. 300 kids and 400 parents will feel the impact). 30 young people will be educated about talents, how to use it to achieve full potential, which faculty to enroll, how to make change in local community through 10 online workshops, 10 mentoring peer to peer workshops and individual meetings with coordinator.

Education enhace people’s feeling of self- efficacy and self-esteem.Knowing yourself is the first step for building up critical and reflective capacities.When individuals discover unique strengths it’s easier to find what they are passionate about.Empowering individuals empowers groups which can change their community.Individual&group approach helps with motivation and stepping out of zone of comfort.Trained teachers work directly with children and teaching with different talents awareness can direct kids so they become active community members having in mind that they have power to change their lives training children to practice democracy.Youth has amazing potential if guided by experts–trough individual approach experts can raise awareness of different ways how to achieve their goals.

Main goals are to provide high quality programs to as many children and young people as possible so they can discover their talents and to set their professional orientation. Focus is also on education of parents and professional associates who are stakeholders in the process of education (field of personal and career counseling). We can empower young people to develop positive and entrepreneurial projects in their communities through encouraging their complete development. Many children and young people aren’t even aware of talents and through pilot projects, we have noticed that our target population responds well to positive approach and approach based on strengths instead of weaknesses. We have an idea which started to live outside of big city – this project will help to nurture it.

Personnel costs (2 full time employees) – 32 000 EUR
Costs for online tests – 4 800 EUR
Travel and accommodation – 1 600 EUR
Printing materials - 4 000 EUR
Professional orientation expenses - 4 000 EUR
Office expenses - 1 333 EUR
Promotion and visibility – 667 EUR
Costs of online applications and accounting costs – 1 333 EUR

We’d like others to see this project and to network with others with similar field of interest. It would be great to receive practical expert advices or suggestion that work remotely/online with rural areas. Comments of any kind are always very welcome.