Adults and children learn to develop leisure activities for boarding school and community fellows

Grownups and children from four communities will take part in a training seminar on the development of leisure activities for boarding school children and community fellows between September 25 and 28. The seminar will be held in Holericani village of Dubasari district as part of a project implemented by the Child Rights Information and Documentation Center. Project coordinator Aliona Stepan has told Info-Prim Neo that by three clubs had been created in four settlements – Carpineni (Hancesti), Cahul, Varnita, (Anenii Noi) and Cazanesti (Telenesti) - last year. The boarding school and community children go to the clubs to jointly take part in leisure activities. About 280 children have the possibility of meeting two times a week and spending the free time in an interesting and useful way. The clubs are coordinated by adult professionals, helped by amateur children. The activities carried out at the clubs are diverse and depend on the interests and needs of the boarding school and community children: sport, dance, fitness, photographing, video, handicraft, theater, etc. All these activities are in fact only a pretext for psychically and socially integrating the boarding school children, Aliona Stepan said. The children meet, communicate, make friends, and celebrate their birthdays together. The joint activities are also beneficial to the community children as they learn to be tolerant. The parents of many of the community children are abroad and coming to the clubs, the children don’t spend the leisure time drinking alcohol or taking drugs, Aliona Stepan stated. During the seminar in Holercani, the adults and children will learn to find by themselves possibilities (projects, grants) for developing the activities in their communities. A nongovernmental organization in Carpineni this year managed to carry out a project aimed at integrating the local boarding school children into the community. This year, the Child Rights Information and Documentation Center plans to open similar clubs in another four communities – Ceadar-Lunga, Vascauti (Floresti), Napadova (Floresti) and Popenchi (Rabnita). Training seminars will be held on October 2-5. The implementation period of the Support to Developing Leisure Activities for Boarding School Children and Community Fellows Project is 2007 – 2010. The project is financed by the Czech Catholic mission Caritas, from the funds of the Government of the Czech Republic. The Child Rights Information and Documentation Center is a nongovernmental organization founded in 1998. It manages programs in education, carries out researches on the applicants’ access to information, brings out publications, organizes training seminars and participative arts, etc.