This year the Summer Schools, the most loved project of all generations of FSC volunteers, were dedicated especially to children from vulnerable families, from villages located in the east of the county, children who were deprived of educational, social or emotional support during the state of emergency and alert induced by the Covid pandemic19. Under the title “Together with the children from the villages”, the FSC volunteers designed and put into practice a program of educational activities addressed to a number of 200 children from the villages of Stănișești, Dealu Morii, Răchitoasa and Motoșeni through a traveling Caravan of one week in each community. The activities were supported daily by 30 FSC volunteers together with another 30 FSC fellows (young people from each targeted community), each day having 4 workshops of one hour each with the participation of a maximum of 40 children, to comply with hygiene standards and social distancing.

The project takes place between August 10 and November 10 and has a total value of 48,837 lei, of which 42,000 lei co-financed by the Bacău County Council

The topics addressed in the workshops are of maximum interest in the current context being related to health, protection against diseases, safe use of the Internet and online media, home schooling, gender equality, etc. The activities were approached creatively, interactively, through elements of play, through the use of arts (music, creation, dance) and outdoor movement.

Obviously, the volunteers were well prepared to support the sessions in conditions of maximum epidemiological safety and organized the sessions mainly in the open air taking into account the principles of social distancing and protection against the spread of COVID.

In the first weeks of the project 8 villages from 4 communes of the county were visited by the Volunteer Caravan and almost 300 children benefited from educational and recreational activities, the main objective being to teach them how to use the platforms used in the online education system.  In this regard, 200 email accounts were set up for these children to have access to online learning tools that they may very much need to use intensively in the next school year.

“This year we arrived in new communities, we met new children with a great desire to get involved. The joy of all the children was different from other years. Their desire to socialize, to participate in educational activities, to play was extremely strong. The long break from such activities was fully felt, and FSC volunteers and fellows managed to bring a little color and a lot of joy in the holiday of these children. We thank the volunteers for their efforts so that this Caravan can run smoothly. We also thank our partners, the town halls of the four communes of Stănișești, Dealu Morii, Motoșeni and Răchitoasa, but also the funder of the Bacău County Council project. ”(Gabriel Măgurianu, FSC volunteer coordinator).

For the FSC volunteers and fellows involved in the Caravan, the project will continue by participating in a camp in which they will design and stage a play based on a true story of a victim of human trafficking. Subsequently, this play will be recorded and promoted through various online media channels, in order to prevent trafficking in rural areas.

The project “Together with the children from the villages” is implemented by the Bacău Community Support Foundation and co-financed by the Bacău County Council through the Non-reimbursable financing program from its own budget for 2020, according to Law no. 350/2005.