In the period 12-18 June, 2022, the Bulgarian Memory Foundation is implementing a joint-staff training event for youth workers within the project “Entrepreneurship and connectivity of young people in the Balkans through creativity and culture”

In the period 12-18 June, 2022, the Bulgarian Memory Foundation, in partnership with “Association for Macedonian-Bulgarian Friendship”, Bitola, Republic of North Macedonia and Association “GLAS”, Bosilegrad, Republic of Serbia, are holding an event within the project “Entrepreneurship and connectivity of young people in the Balkans through creativity and culture”, No. 2020 -1-BG01-KA227-YOU-095019, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme, KA2.

The main goal of the project is to create an innovative methodology for the development of entrepreneurship skills and creativity among young people in the Balkans through a creative and cultural toolkit. It is developed and tested with 15 youth workers and 60 young people, contributing to their personal development, active civic participation and connectivity; strengthening the capacity of organizations engaged in the cultural sphere and is an open access educational resource.

Over the past few days, through their participation in the various panels of the program, the youth workers have acquired valuable new knowledge, transversal, communication and presentation skills that will be useful to them in the future.

The program started with ice-breaking sessions and creating group rules. The event continued with Nikolay Dunev, Chairman of the “Active Historical Map” Foundation, whose strong interest in history, geography and innovation led him to a modern and useful idea – the compilation of active historical maps, which are interactive digital models, supplemented by various texts and photos, border changes, troop movements, marking of important events by which one can understand in detail the most important historical periods for the respective country.

In the following panels of the event’s program, the participants presented the good practices for entrepreneurship through creativity and culture from their countries of origin and actively participated in workshops dedicated to the elaboration of the project’s innovative methodology.

Dr. Mladen Lambeff, former Coordinator of the Parliamentary Dimension of the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union -2018, explained to the participants in detail how culture drives the economic and social development of Europe, as well as moderated a group exercise in which the young people developed and presented innovative ideas for cultural entrepreneurship.

The participants got acquainted with the topic “Shared art in the Balkans – traditions, contemporary art and new approaches to the content”, presented by Snezhana Joveva-Dimitrova, Director of the State Institute of Culture at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria. According to Mrs. Dimitrova, culture is a powerful tool for interaction between people and enables the unification of nations.

In the panels of the program, non-formal education methods, interactive methods, interdisciplinary cases and activities, games, group training and team training were applied, focusing on the development of innovative methodology for the development of entrepreneurship skills and creativity among young people in the Balkans.

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