Background
The Bulgarian Society for Education and Culture (BOOK) has found that Stara Zagora Municipality does not have a social policy program or facility for a special target group among teenagers, i.e., those otherwise intelligent and hard-working senior secondary students who come from underprivileged families children who have lost one or both parents or whose parents are disabled or otherwise marginalized. These often are adolescents of strong character and high intellectual ability who have had to grow up early and even head families, taking care of their parents or younger siblings. The City and the local social services do not have any working mechanism to identify such youngsters in the first place and largely underestimate the need for a targeted approach to them.

Practice
BOOK s Project, With a Little Help from My Friends, has the objective of creating a work arrangement an hourly work exchange for the target group, i.e., underprivileged senior secondary students, and rallying the community s support for these otherwise promising young people. The Project will allow them to earn some much needed income, while ensuring that they continue with their studies, offering them a helping hand out of poverty and social isolation. BOOK is to assume an intermediary role between them and their employers, an advocate for the adolescents best interest and a guarantor of the employers compliance with the existing labor legislation.
The students will be offered hourly work corresponding to their preferences and abilities; among their prospective employers are the City Hall s International Department, one of the Mayor s Offices, the town library, the local puppet theater, an art studio, two law firms, the local Chamber of Commerce, NGOs, a day-care center, Radio Stara Zagora and other mass media, an Internet service provider, an opinion poll firm, a car mechanic s, construction firms, a dental laboratory. This will also be a good way for the youngsters to master a trade and establish contacts with future customers and employers.
Besides, the initiative will equip the adolescents with some indispensable behavior skills in looking for a job, preparing a resume, filing a job application, preparing for a job interview.
The Project is sponsored by the Development of Civil Society Foundation and is being implemented jointly with another NGO, Art, Culture and Education Society International.

Results
The following opportunities were offered to 20 students of age 16 or older (orphans or with disabled parents), top achievers from leading local schools, such as the Romain Rolland Foreign Language School, the School of Science and Mathematics, the Business School, the Maksim Gorki Foreign Language School, the Builders School, the School of Electrical Engineering:
improve their income without compromising their dignity and school record
acquire work habits and become integrated into an intelligent and healthy working environment
apply and develop their talents, and a sense of purpose
gain the community s respect and sympathy