The Svetogled centre welcomes with smiles

The first working day of the Svetogled public support centre was traditionally welcomed – with sprinkled water for good luck, plenty of flowers and hope for an even more successful upcoming year for the Roma children and their parents.

We invited Anna Ilieva who is the coordinator of the Early Years Education Programme in vulnerable communities to talk about the last two years and the future of the Svetogled centre.

“It’s difficult for me to summarise what we have achieved during the last two years. So many things have happened – we opened the Centre based on the Early Years Education Programme in vulnerable communities, we have worked to promote it in the local community, particularly among parents and families who really need this service. These past two years we have worked with two groups of children – one for each year. The work is carried out according to the approved programme by the Ministry of Education and Science and follows all the educational activities set out in the curriculum.

We are proud to announce that for the last year 11 children went on to attend school, which means that we managed to motivate not only the children, but their parents as well, which is essential for the enrolling process.

Not everything is measured by numbers. For us it is extremely important to see positive change in the children, in their behaviour, their knowledge and their language skills. Most of the children come to us with serious behavioural problems and no knowledge of the Bulgarian language. Thanks to the work of the teacher, the children have developed a lot of their skills and parents have realised the importance of education. Indeed, the parents see the change in their children and feel very proud of them and their achievements.

The tasks of the centre are numerous and they might be quite ambitious, but we are working on community development and focus on school dropout prevention. We help build trust and strengthen the relationship between families in the community, organise local activities and campaigns, support people when they need assistance in preparing different types of documentation, organise events for the children and their families in the Centre. Most of our work is done on the ground when we travel locally to establish dialogue between the community and the local institutions.

Even though the classes didn’t begin on 15 September, the spirit of the first school day was in the air and excited both children and staff.

The public support centre has a very important mission – here children get the opportunity to adapt to the learning process so that when they start school they can be on the same level as their peers of Bulgarian origin. In the Centre the children learn about good behaviour, healthy habits as well as what it means to be part of a team. The Centre even tries to lay the foundation for their cultural interest in music and arts.

This year we have two more goals beyond working with young children – deepening our work with parents from the Roma minority as well as enrolling children of school age.