One year of alternative education in Ferentari!

October 6th, 2011

Yesterday we celebrated one year since we opened the Alternative Education Club at School no.136 in the Ferentari neighbourhood.  The event took place at the school’s gym and it was a good occasion to demonstrate what we’ve accomplished in the year that passed and how alternative education has improved the lives of  over 120 children that came to us in these first 12 months of activity. We invite you to take a virtual tour of what happened at our anniversary.

Welcome to the Alternative Education Club's one year anniversary. Please come in!

Andreea and other four children welcomed our guests!

Over 150 children from the School no. 136 and School no. 2 in the Ferentari neighborhood took part in the event. Here, the children were singing the official anthem of the Alternative Education Club, a well known Romanian pop song, called "Tot mai sus - Higher and higher"

The almost 30 parents present at the anniversary encouraged their children from the tribunes. The event was a good opportunity for them to enroll their children in the classes at the Alternative Education Club. Only yesterday we received 50 new applications.

In the first part of the event the children and their coordinators showed the guests what they actually do at the club everyday. In the picture the children at the Math class. Yesterday classes in Romanian, English and social and financial education - Aflatoun, also took place.

At the Alternative Education Club the children also learn to play volleyball. They are also very proud of their new uniforms especially created for the children enrolled in the club.

Valeriu Nicolae, the president of our organization, with the children at the basketball class. The sports demonstrations also included a football session led by a young Roma football player from Ferentari, Laurențiu Gheorghe.

Damian Drăghici, famous Romanian artist and one of our supporters and coordinator of the music classes at the Alternative Education Club sang with the children in the applause of the audience.

The highlight of the day for the children was the big cake! Together we sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed the delicious cake. After just a few minutes it was almost gone...

The smiling orange on the cake is also the new logo of the club.

Another big surprise for the children was the opening of a new playground in the backyard of School no. 136. We wish to thank to the District 5 Mayor's Office for the all their support and help.

The Alternative Education Club is a safe, open, creative and challenging new space for children that live in the ghetto in Ferentari. A year ago, we started out with lots of enthusiasm and now we are trying to build a professional practice that could be replicated at the national and international level and address the very complex issues around education and active citizenship for communities that live in ghettoes.

We launched this project because we believed that young people, and especially children, must be encouraged to discover and experiment various activities and benefit from different life models. They need hope, encouragement , positive incentives and help in order to learn better and to stay in school longer. Therefore, among the goals we had in mind last year were:

• Developing an innovative approach, focused on improving school attendance and performance and on developing individual abilities and aptitudes.
• Developing sports teams in order to increase the discipline, self-esteem and performance of the children involved
• Maintaining the communication between school and parents and determining the better understanding of the role of education in escaping the precarious conditions of ghetto life.
• Involve as many role models from Romania (including Roma personalities) in what we do in order to increase awareness about life in ghetto and develop a strong active citizenship component meant to help change in long term.

Now, after a year has passed, we believe we succeeded to reach our goals through the developed activities: sports activities (football, basketball, volleyball, boxing), artistic activities (theatre, street-dance, music) or after-school activities (helping children with their Romanian, Maths or English homework). We obtained a series of visible results: the children became more confident and disciplined, both at the club and at school, they showed more respect for each other, learned to work together and to become more competitive. At the sametime, they improved their reading and mathematical abilities, as well as their knowledge of English language. In addition, due to the improved learning process and the raised motivation, school dropout rate decreased and more children stayed in school and valued education more.

Our intervention was not limited to the physical space of the Alternative Education Club, but initiated a real community development process, by involving parents, teachers and local authority representatives.

This way the Alternative Education Club project is expanding in Ferentari, by creating new clubs at other schools in the neighbourhood. We will have a new Alternative Education Club at School no.2 and we want, in the future, to replicate the project at School no. 147 also.

With the occasion of our anniversary, we launched a promotional clip for the club at School no. 136. We thank our director and supporter  Emmy award winner – Alexander Nanau for all his help and support.