Background

In 2001 a few enthusiastic young people from the Municipality of Rakovski established the Enlighteners Initiative Group, whose main activity and purposes are directed towards the Roma minority population in the municipality. The main priorities set by these young people are the following:
To organize preparatory classes for Roma children under school age with assistant-teachers of Roma origin in the two primary schools in General Nikolaevo residential district and in the village of Belozem.

To teach how to read and write 15 young people, who should be involved as associates and volunteers in different municipal activities.
To encourage parents to take part and to promote the process of teaching their children.
To establish an Integration Club for children at school age.

Practice

The project that the Enlighteners Initiative Group applied with before the S.E.G.A. Foundation amounts to 4400 BGN, 3678 BGN of which are contribution of the foundation and the rest the Initiative Group s own contribution, expressed primarily in volunteer work. The project implementation passed through the following stages:
Lists of children under school age were prepared and conversations were held with their parents in order to clarify the idea of carrying out this new form of education.
Agreements were prepared with the school trustees of both schools with the purpose of ensuring study halls for the educational period.
Visits were organized during the reading and mathematics lessons in first class in order to make the Roma children part to the real educational process and the group of other children.
Various cultural programs and initiatives were organized, aiming to show and further develop the emotional wealth and individuality of the children.
The celebration of different events was organized together with parents.

The young people from the Enlighteners Initiative Group have build up bridges of friendship with the residents of Roma origin in the municipality. They gave an example to everyone that we should not separate people by the colour of their skin, language and culture and that we should be united in solving problems, because the more educated and literate we are, the sooner we will become part of the big European home.

Results

With the implementation of the project the following results were achieved:
9 children from General Nikolaevo residential district and 15 children from Belozem village graduated successfully the preparatory class, adapted to school and obtained knowledge for a first grade pupil.
A good knowledge of the Bulgarian language at a conversational level was achieved.
Children obtained versatile knowledge of the social environment, abilities to handle figures and letters, to draw pictures, to sing and to recite poetry. In such way the attitude of the children and of their parents to the surrounding world was changed. They gained high motivation and responsibility towards the society they are living in.