Kamchia, September 2-9, 2019
As every year, in the first week of September the Bulgarian Red Cross Youth (BRCY) holds its Volunteer Academy. For a third consecutive year BFPA is a part of the training team of the Academy. “Pass it on!” is the motto for 2019. During a full and intense week – from Sep 2nd to 9th , 74 volunteers from all over the country worked on the topics “Leadership and youth empowerment”, “BRCY’s health program”, “Social support activities” and “Life skills”.
The health program this year for the first time incorporates the three main strategic health directions: 1. Sexual and reproductive health and prevention of HIV and STIs; 2. Prevention of addictions; 3. Healthy lifestyle. The session about fake news in healthcare, conducted by Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova from BFPA and also the discussion on partnership and networking, moderated by her attracted a lot of interest. The highlight of one of the evenings was the traditional REDx event, where the motivational speakers were Dr. Stamenkova and Nicoletta Gabrovska from “Single step”.
The participants of the Academy tested their communicational skills in debates on assigned topics and had the pleasure to see for themselves that promotional materials don’t have to be necessarily boring and that we can avoid using plastic water bottles. Each participant received a reusable water bottle and attractive panama hats with a holiday wink.
The young people were supported in their work by BRCY director Denitza Barumova and by Peter Tzintzarski who, besides a BRCY consultant is also Vice-President of BFPA. Along with them the volunteers analyzed what has happened with the modules of the Health program so far, learned to look for useful and up to date information and to detect fake news, to be tolerant towards differences, to debate with proper arguments, to network with other organizations and institutions, to present facts in an interesting and motivating manner, to be useful to themselves and others with knowledge and skills. In fact the end of the Academy and presenting the certificates is the beginning of 12 months of active work until the next Academy in September 2020 – with new participants and new work ideas.
