2nd Regional Service-Learning Week for Central and Eastern Europe - Romania
The 2nd Regional Service-LearningWeek for Central and Eastern Europe was held in Cluj Napoca, Romania, from 2 to 6 July.
On July 2 and 3 we offered a training of trainers for 23 teachers from Romania and Kosovo. The training was given by CLAYSS professionals together with MIOS Tuzla (Bosnia Herzegovina), in the facilities of Transylvania College and with the support of the New Horizons Foundation (Romania). It was two days of intense work with teachers who are developing service-learning projects, and who will be training colleagues to expand the subject in their countries. They worked in a very committed way, and collaboratively developed a series of documents that will be useful for colleagues working on the topic in the region.
On July 4, an international team of 20 participants from various countries in the region (Romania, Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo) had the opportunity to visit developing projects both in Cluj Napoca and in the rural area of Marisel. It was a valuable day that allowed not only direct contact with the students and the communities they work with, but also seeing projects that are transforming their communities in first person.
The second Regional Service-Learning Conference took place on 5 July and 130 people from 11 countries participated: Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina, Austria, Great Britain, Slovakia, Montenegro, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Romania. There were different plenary presentations in the morning and participatory workshops in the afternoon. The most valued by the participants was the possibility of sharing good practices from different countries in the region as well as others - the presence of Roser Batlle from the Spanish Service-Learning Network was highly valued -, learning from the examples and experience of other colleagues. It was appreciated that there was a climate of joy and hope for educational improvement in the region.
