The following activities are going on under STUVOL in Croatia
“My First Book” contest is in its third year with workshops and publicity going on in different towns. We received already the first story by a very eager 7 year old with the title “The bee and the bear”. New volunteers have been trained to give workshops and a presentation of this project is planned at the teacher’s college.
“Peers and Helpers” is a project integrating children with special needs from one school in Karlovac with regular children from other schools in Karlovac. We have received 12, 000 Euro for this project from Zagrebacka Bank. One of the goals is to make people aware and sensitive to the needs of the children with special needs. We are planning various activities to help achieve this: creative workshops, drawing, writing and music sessions, spending time together, sports, cooperative games, theatre and outings. After introducing the idea of STUVOL clubs in some regular schools in town we will ask volunteers to come along to mingle with the children with special needs when we have the activities.
“Watch out Mines!” is another project for which our CNS Young Writers Club made a storybook with beautiful illustrations. We have received funding from ITF (International International Trust Fund for Demining ) for this project to print 10,000 books which will be distributed to children who live close to dangerous mine fields. The five authors of the book are very happy and we all celebrated this good news with their parents.
“Anti-bullying Project” is starting again with the new school term and with Pedro Alves who is here from Portugal to do his internship as a psychology student with CNS. His presence stirred up the schools and he has been invited to tell about the tiny islands of the Azors in the middle of the Atlantic where he is precisely from. In his presentation he incorporates to talk about anti-bullying, volunteering and the book contest. He is also presenting on STUVOL in the Inova High School in Zagreb and in the Economics High School in Karlova to inspire the students to form STUVOL clubs.