1 / 23

GET to KNOW

GET to KNOW. Creating Effective Grassroots Alternatives Foundation. www.cega.bg. BULGARIA The Republic of Bulgaria is situated in South-eastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula. Population – 7,6 million Around 80% of the population is ethnic Bulgarians

bess
Download Presentation

GET to KNOW

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. GET to KNOW Creating Effective Grassroots Alternatives Foundation www.cega.bg

  2. BULGARIAThe Republic of Bulgaria is situated in South-eastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula Population – 7,6 million Around 80% of the population is ethnic Bulgarians Minorities – Roma, Turks, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, others Official language - Bulgarian Neighbouring countries: North – Romania South – Greece and Turkey West - FYROM and Serbia East – the Black Sea

  3. Brief description of the situation Transition period after the changes in 1989 - transforming from centralized to market economy and from totalitarian regime to democracy. The transition is still considered on-going. Bulgaria became a member of NATO in 2004 and of the European Union in 2007 in the last enlargement of the Community. Bulgaria is still economically weak, being the poorest country in the EU in terms of citizens’ in-come. Although official member state of the EU, Bulgaria is still trying to catch up in implementing European standards in most of the spheres of social life.

  4. New perspectives and challenges after the European Union accession: Regardless the existing policies for development, there is lack of sensibility and awareness in the society concerning the needs and the problems of the vulnerable groups (both in and out of Bulgaria) as neither engagement of the citizens into the process of development exist, nor overcoming the problems of the excluded; CEGA’s experience in the past fifteen years proves that the awareness raising and the sensibility to the individual citizen’s responsibility should start at school age;

  5. New perspectives and challenges after the European Union accession: The civic education is part of the school curriculum but is focused mainly on the political systems. The problems of active citizenship and the sensibility and responsibility to the others and the excluded are not integrated in the curriculum; Special mechanisms for citizen’s participation and structured channels for voicing their needs in the decision-making process have been created in the recent years. However the citizen’s active participation at the existing mechanism remains the biggest challenge.

  6. What is C.E.G.A.? C.E.G.A. - Creating Effective Grassroots Alternatives is a non-profit organization registered in 1995 and re-registered in 2002 according to the new Act on legal entities with non-profit purposes as an organization working for public benefit. C.E.G.A. works for capacity building in different levels, changing attitudes and improvement of policies for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities.

  7. Main fields of work: Field 1: Capacity building for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities • Providing trainings and consultancy to local organizations, groups and authorities for effective work with disadvantages communities and for accessing funds, especially in the sphere of education and in-come generation; • Facilitating dialogue between disadvantaged communities and the decision-making bodies.

  8. Main fields of work: Field 2: Improvement of policies for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities • Running researches and identifying problems and good practices through cooperation of local organizations and communities; • Participation in councils and structures developing policies for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities on local and national level; • Running and/or participation in various kinds of monitoring on implementation of policies for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities on local and national level.

  9. Main fields of work: Field 3: Changing attitudes for social inclusion of disadvantaged communities • Running trainings and seminars, connected with Human rights, intercultural dialogue and social inclusion through various stakeholders; • Organizing events and campaigns promoting intercultural dialogue as a tool for social inclusion; • Capacity building and strengthening the activities of C.E.G.A.’s youth volunteers network.

  10. Main fields of work: Field 4:International development • Supporting the process of providing “Official Development Assistance” through the Bulgarian platform for international development. • Promoting of good practices for working with disadvantaged communities in the developing countries, stated as priority countries by the Bulgarian government; • Promoting Development Education in Bulgaria and building capacity on various levels for its inclusion in the formal educational system.

  11. Target Groups Local organizations and groups, mainly working with the Roma community; Public authorities both on local and national level; Schools. Young people are cross-cutting prioritytarget group in all fields and activities.

  12. What did C.E.G.A. do? Since its establishment, C.E.G.A.’s activities included trainings, technical assistance, support in fundraising, campaigns for awareness-raising, mentoring, mediation, support in policy-development, advocacy efforts, monitoring of the implementation of the plans for integration of the Roma communities at all levels.

  13. Achievements in brief: The programs of C.E.G.A. and its partners have reached out to over 200 000 people over the years. C.E.G.A. has helped the emerging and growth of more than 60 community groups and organizations working inside Roma communities. Some of them are leading factors for change in their communities with impact national wide. C.E.G.A. also provided assistance and help to more than 45 non-Roma organizations working in key areas of civil society, which are currently leading in their field of expertise.

  14. Achievements in brief: C.E.G.A. has over 20 publications with case studies, documentaries and analytic publications. Among them are: Roma in the media, Monitoring of the Implementation of the state policy of Roma inclusion at local level, Desegregation of Roma Schools, Handbook on how to communicate and work in a multicultural environment. C.E.G.A. produces own or in cooperation with mass media products. They are directed to the larger audience and present the existing problems and possible solutions. The documentaries were broadcasted on Different national TV programs. Some of the documentaries are: “Angel club”, “Beyond the fog”, “The Parisians from Lom”, “Colors”.

  15. Partners and networks C.E.G.A. works in partnership with over 70 NGOs with national outreach working in areas like local government reform, policy (think tank groups), community development, civil society, and human rights. C.E.G.A. is very successful in voicing out the issues of marginalized communities at the national and international level. C.E.G.A. has participated in numerous national events, NGO pressure groups, and advisory issue-based groups to Ministries, Parliament, and donors.

  16. Partners and networks Currently C.E.G.A. is a member of the National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues to the Council of Ministries, the National Council to State Agency for Child Protection and the Consultative Council on integration of children and students from minorities to the Ministry of Education. C.E.G.A. is a member of several international network where plays key role in their development. The networks in which C.E.G.A. is representative are: Central and Eastern European Citizens Network, Central European Bureau for Community Development, Pakiv European Network, CONCORD and TRIALOG.

  17. Current Programmes Youth Against Racism! Mainstreaming anti-racism in all spheres of youth work January 2010 – July 2011 Funded by European Commission, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship The overall aim of the project is to transform the youth work in Europe into a sphere free of harmful stereotypes and thus to insure that racism and xenophobia do not exist in youth projects and youth activities across Europe.

  18. Current Programmes Capacity building of NGOs in Greece, Romania, Bulgaria for mobilising support for MDGs March 2010 – March 2012 Funded by European Commission, EuropeAid The overall objective of the proposed action is to increase awareness and mobilise support in the target EU countries, namely Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, for the achievement of MDGs in sub-Saharan Africa in particular, through local NGOs specialised in the fields of media, education and health services.

  19. Current Programmes Teach MDGs April 2010 – April 2013 Funded by European Commission, EuropeAid The aim of the project is to increase awareness and public support for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) through actively engaging teacher training institutes, teachers and pupils in developing local oriented teaching resources promoting the MDGs with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa and integrate these into the educational systems in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Estonia through comprehensive initial and in-service teacher trainings.

  20. Current Programmes Enhancing Development Education in Central and Eastern European Countries January 2010 – January 2013 Funded by European Commission, EuropeAid The project aims to enhance Development Education in Central European Countries by building up capacities and by supporting existing structures in the field of DE related to the needs of the involved countries, especially in the NMS of the EU.

  21. Current Programmes Adult Learning for Integration of Immigrants December 2008 – December 2010 Funded by European Commission, LLP Grundtvig The project A.L.I.I. - Adult Learning for Integration of Imigrants is being implemented by international partnership with leading organization Centro Еuropeo di Informazione, Cultura e Cittadinanza (Naples, Italy) (www.comune.napoli.it). Partners are C.E.G.A. Foundation and other non-governmental organizations and educational institutions from Italy, France, Denmark and Latvia.

  22. Current Programmes Accessing Development Education – Global Connections Funded by European Commission, EuropeAid January 2008 – June 2010 This project aims at promoting Development Education within the educational sector across Europe, focusing specifically on Lithuania, Cyprus, Scotland, Ireland and Bulgaria. The leading organization is Future Worlds Center and C.E.G.A. Foundation is an associate partner for Bulgaria. The main project activities include Creation of Teachers’ Advisory Groups to gather and review existing educational material on development issues and global education; meetings and workshops for sharing information among the project partners; trainings and workshops for teachers and representatives of educational institutions; international conference on Development education in formal and non-formal education. The project receives funding from the European Union.

  23. Creating Effective Grassroots Alternatives Foundation More about C.E.G.A. on www.cega.bg Thank you for your attention! Bulgaria, 1000 Sofia 96, G.S.Rakovski str., 2nd floor cega@cega.bg

More Related