BUTI goes to Uganda
Article by (Stacy, Violina & Angie from the Open Space Foundation.)
Pictures by : Gudrun Columbus (ex-volunteer from the Open Space Foundation)
Uganda,
The place of traffic
,lazy mosquito and inspirational people, place of limited Internet and
unlimited opportunities.
On the 24th
of January two representatives from Open Space Foundation left the cold Sofia for
a week and took a long journey to Uganda. It was exhausting, but totally
worthy, not only for the endless summer, but also for the incredible people we
found there.
In the beginning of
2017 Open Space Foundation(Bulgaria) Started a big project called “Art and Culture
for Unity” ,with the support of Erasmus+ program ,in collaboration with
different organisations from Europe and Africa: Soul Xpressions
(Uganda),Chamwino Arts Center (Tanzania) , Mine Vaganti (Italy) ; Forming BUTI all
together.
Among the activities conducted,
BUTI shuffled volunteers, hosted study visits, organised youth exchange and
finally the time arrived for us to move to Uganda for a training course.
The aim of the
training course was to create twenty approved projects for social improvement and
in the same time to implement the participants themselves, making them able to
plan and write their own project proposals.
Twentyfive youth
workers took part in the project as participants and facilitators.
This training course
was very useful and innovative because
we used creative facilitation to go through activities for evaluation of
personal skills,Problem and Solution tree method, S.W.O.T. and S.M.A.R.T.models, planning,presenting and feedback
giving on the personal projects ; and reaching the point of project writing on
template, budgeting and signing the final contracts.
As an outcome we reached our goal of having
twenty approved projects in fields of social and environmental improvement,
sexual education, promoting cultural awareness , entrepreneurship, healthy
lifestyle, expand the influence of the local NGOs, working with refugees,
promotion of literature, tools for understanding new media and guidance for
choosing right profession among youngsters.
This training course was so intensive (we
couldn’t even find a gap to go around discovering the beauties of Uganda), although we had limited time, we accomplished
all the goals we listed at the beginning.
This project was very productive and
applicable for the social workers involved.
However, the hard time is only beginning:
each personal project will have one hundred euro support and three months time
to be implemented.
We, as BUTI, cant wait to see the final
result of the Ugandan training and how far the new born projects will arrive in
future.
Thanks for stopping by...
See you soon💕 !
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