Education for future

The school dropout rate among children from disadvantaged families and backgrounds in Romania is constantly increasing. The cumulative effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the War in Ukraine have further accentuated this problem. Vulnerable children go through situations of unprecedented difficulty (isolation and material deprivation) and, implicitly, go through an even greater risk of dropping out of school.

In 2022 and 2023, United Way with the support of Kaufland Romania implements the “Education for Future” project, dedicated to vulnerable children, their parents and teachers who work with them.

The objectives of the project according to the target group:

For children:

• After school program where children are helped with their current and remedial schoolwork. Within the program, students receive warm meals and material support.
• Organization of non-formal learning activities: environmental education, health, digital skills, reading clubs, STEM activities.
• Tutoring (peer learning) – moving from the status of beneficiary to that of a resource, increasing self-esteem and developing the spirit of collegiality and helping.

For parents:

• Information, counseling and support through parenting sessions based on the curricula previously developed by UWRo (stress and anger management, trust-based parent-child relationship development, child development, communication, education and positive discipline).
• Parent-child educational activities (creativity, literacy, personal development).

For teachers:

• Training of teachers on the acquisition of skills in working with children and vulnerable families: course accredited by the Ministry of Education and Research and course for developing children’s literacy and critical thinking skills.

For the community:

• Events to promote and develop reading skills and the importance of education. In 2022, we focused our attention on actions to promote education in five communities where we carried out our activity. These consisted of workshops, plays, performances and outdoor exhibitions. In 2023, the events will focus on promoting reading in 10 communities, by organizing literacy workshops, reading in public spaces, collecting books and distributing them to children in the targeted communities.

Results of the “Education for Future” project carried out in 2022:

• 1.049 children participated in the events promoting education;
• 316 children participated in support activities for the fulfillment of current and remedial school tasks as well as in non-formal learning activities;
• 96 children participated in tutoring, peer-learning activities;
• 316 children benefited from material aid, a warm meal during the project’s activities, but also schoolbags and school supplies, food packages, shopping vouchers for winter clothing and footwear, hygiene products, Christmas gifts, payment of utility bills and medical tests;
• 152 parents took part in the information, counseling and support sessions through parental education sessions and parent-child educational activities;
• 93 teachers participated in the course accredited by the Ministry of Education and Research in partnership with the house of the Didactic body Timiș “Systemic management of the student class” and 7 specialists from the project benefited from education courses on environmental protection and digital resources;
• 75 volunteers provided a total of 258 hours of volunteering: group or individual activities with children, online or face-to-face.

When the project was evaluated in 2022 by children, parents and teachers, we received very good feedback. Therefore:

• 95% of the children who answered our questionnaires said that they really enjoyed participating in the project’s activities;

• 96% of parents rated the importance of the project’s activities in general for their family as high as possible;

• 91% of teachers appreciated the professional training courses they participated in as part of the project as offering practical solutions and real opportunities to exchange experience. For more details on the beneficiaries’ feedback, you can access the Report on the analysis of the beneficiaries’ satisfaction questionnaires within the “Education for future” project.

The results obtained in 2022, as well as the reactions gathered from children, parents and teachers, were the basis of the decision to continue and develop the project in collaboration with Kaufland Romania until at least the end of the 2023-2024 school year.