Projects and Research

Romania
Current projects

Project:

Support for professionals in the work with children and youth; understanding and reacting to the Newly Emering Needs of Children and Youth.
 
The project follows an earlier study and publication by ICDI on new challenges, problems and opportunities confronting children (Newly Emerging Needs of Children, van Oudenhoven and Wair, 2006).  In this project we hope to come with a set of interventions, policy recommendations and resource materials that help to identify and monitor these new trends and respond to them. The bulk of the activity will be conducted in Slovakia and Romania.
 
As is the nature of the Leonardo programme, we are still in a very exploratory phase of the project. We will start by identifing the most significant indicators of change in children’s lives in Slovakia and Romania. These will be identified as newly emerging needs of children. For the first 6 months the following activities have been identified.
 
Activity 1: Develop country case studies on the newly emerging needs of children in Romania and Slovakia.A team of experts will conduct a case study for each country. These studies will provide a mapping of the local context, highlight a number of ‘new needs’ confronting children that are likely to grow in significance, and identify gaps within the educational and social protection systems in these two countries. They will be written on the basis of consultations with experts from various fields and institutions working with children as well as young people themselves. Other sources of information, such as the literature and media will also be consulted. The case studies will be used as a starting point for the training of experts in the two countries.
The case studies will be carried out by the partner organisations under the guidance of ICDI experts. The partner organisations and ICDI experts will meet with social scientists, philosophers, policy makers, NGO representatives, education specialist, teachers, as well as children and parents. A number of 10 days are envisaged to carry out the local assessments in each country.
 
Activity 2: Organise  a National Workshop in each country
The aim of the workshop will be to present the case study and debate the conclusions of the report and a model of intervention proposed by relevant stakeholders. The workshop and the case studies will help adapt the model and methodology to the local context.
 
Activity 3: Production of resource materials
A set of resource and training materials will be selected and, where needed, translated in Romanian and Slovakian for the use of professionals, with the emphases on feasible guidelines on how to identify, understand and respond to newly emerging needs and on its implications for life-long learning and life-skills training.
 
April 2010
An article was published (in Slovak) in the magazine Intoxi (see page 13): intoxi_4_2010.pdf
 

Project Manager Rutger van Oudenhoven/Rekha Wazir

Van 1 January 2009
Tot 1 January 2011

Partner
Civil Society Development Foundation (Romania) and Children of Slovakia Foundation (Slovakia)

Donor
Education and Culture Life Long Learning Proramme Leonardo da Vinci, European Union.

Project:

Promoting Life Skills Education in School Curricula

This Project builds on the results of the project "Children and Youth as Builders of Civil Society" that ICDI and CSDF implemented between 2005 and 2008. The Successes of this project has convinced the Romanian Ministry of Education to further explore possibilities of enhancing the capacity of schools and their teachers to teach high quality life skills education. CSDF will take on this task with ICDI taking up a strong supportin role.

Project Manager Ruter van Oudenhoven

Van November 2008
Tot September 2011

Partner
Civil Society Development Foundation

Donor
European Structural Fund

Past projects

Project:

Children and youth as builders of civil society
 
Project goal: Toimprove the overall development of Romanian children and prepare them for their role as active citizens.
 
Completed in December 2008, over a period of three and a half years, this  project sought to empower children and youth by building the leadership skills of staff of youth-oriented NGOs, teachers and departmental staff of the Ministry of Education. Through various trainings we have increased the knowledge of democratic processes and the capacity to provide life skills education to children and youth. Over 160 people have been trained in life skills education by a group of expert National Trainers. The trainees have had the opportunity to develop mini-projects, targeting over 850 young people and children directly. It is expected that many more children will be reached through the NGOs and schools in which the trained people work. These achievements have also helped us to set new goals: official accreditation of the life skills course, integration of life skills education in the official school curriculum, and the establishment of a Centre of Learning. The project has provided important inputs for convincing the government to invest more in young people.
 
Main achievements
  • The 17 Master Trainers trained over 160 staff members from youth NGOs on strengthening partnerships between civil society and public institutions, and on participatory teaching methods and life skills.
  • 49 youth NGOs implemented short-term educational projects with children and young people, putting into practice what they learned during their training. Projects were aimed at, among others, children with disabilities and learning problems, children from minority backgrounds, children with HIV/Aids, children in prison, and children who were left behind by parents moving abroad.  Around a 1000 children have participated directly in these initiatives.
    • Strengthening of regional cooperation and understanding through study visits to Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Netherlands.
    • The project was presented at a two National Conferences in which an average of 200 representatives of the media, government, NGOs and the Dutch embassy took part.
    • The Ministry of Education has accredited the life skills course, making it an official part of the national school curriculum. This is a major success and should have a lasting impact on Romanian children.
  • Two Follow up projects have already started: see current project Romania!

Project Manager Rutger van Oudenhoven

Van Aug 2005
Tot Aug 2008

Partner
Civil Society Development Foundation

Donor
MATRA Projects Programme, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands