Project logo selected after a competition
The logo of the “Adults Mentoring” project was selected after a public announced competition. In the first project months posters were made for the purposes of the contest. They were put on key places in Plovdiv, Panagjurishte, Pazardjik and Sliven. Several local newspapers also published news about the ongoing competition.
As a result the Bulgarian team, working on the project, received many interesting proposals. After a discussion in between all partners the most attractive logo was selected. As noticeable, it closely represents the “Adults Mentoring” concept.
A material award – digital camera was foreseen as an incentive for the efforts. The author of the awarded sign is Miss Gergana Dimitrova, student at Plovdiv University “Paisii Hilendarski”. She is also a professional graphical designer.
On 12 March 2007 the happy winner received her prize from representative of “Marie Curie” Association. Miss Dimitrova shared that the design of the logo took her not more than a few hours because it was “drawn” with great enthusiasm. She wished success to the project and promised to surprise us with many creative ideas in the future too.
Pictures from the awarded can be seen in Gallery on the website.
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Round table, dedicated to the employment opportunities for people with disabilities and disadvantaged
On 31 March 2007 in Sofia a round table, dedicated to the employment opportunities for people with disabilities and disadvantaged was conducted. The event was organised by the National ombudsman and The Anti-discrimination Commission in cooperation with the NGOs: “Dignified Life” Foundation and “Centre for Gender Researches”.
“Marie Curie” Association, Plovdiv was one of the invited organisations which presented its activities within European projects in the sphere of vocational training and employment for people with disabilities and disadvantaged.
In front of more than 50 participants Ms. Petya Grudeva – PR of the Association demonstrated the achievements and the products in the different initiatives, financially supported by the “Leonardo da Vinci” Programme. One of the projects presented was the “Adults Mentoring” project. The audience shared their great interest in the opportunities for non-formal training for people over 50 years of age. The representative of the Ministry of labour and social affairs Ivailo Naidenov declared that the ministry will follow with interest the development of the initiative and its effect for the target group. More project details were presented in the informational materials, received by each of the participants.
Among the other themes of the round table were “Measures undertaken by the Anti-discrimination Commission in Bulgaria” and programmes of the Ministry of labour and social affairs for stimulation of the employment of people with disabilities. One of the conclusions implemented in the final documents of the round table was that the state institutions should be more engaged with development of programmes for stimulation of the employers to establish new work places for people with disabilities and the NGOs to create non-formal trainings for raise of the competences of people with disabilities and disadvantaged.
Pictures from the event can be seen in Gallery menu on the web site.
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A Thematic Monitoring Conference “ The Voice of Users in Guidance”
On 10-11 May 2007 in Lubliana, Slovenia, a Thematic Monitoring Conference “ The Voice of Users in Guidance” was held. The event was organized by Iceland LdV Agency in cooperation with their Slovenian colleagues. More than 125 organisations from all over Europe, working on international projects in the sphere of vocational education and guidance, took part in the conference. Representatives of “Zgura-M” Ltd., Bulgaria, were among the participants in the event.
In the first work day there was an exhibition of promotional materials, presenting various European initiatives, funded by “Leonardo da Vinci” Programme of the European Commission. “Adults Mentoring” project also had its marketplace, where there were leaflets promoting the concept of the initiative. In parallel with the exhibition, there was a presentation of the project. It informed the delegates about the Need analysis report of elderly people, as well as for the future activities foreseen in the next stages.
The second work day of the conference was dedicated to work in groups on important topics like: education and employment of people with disabilities and disadvantaged, guidance for elderly people, etc. During discussions, representatives of “Adults Mentoring” project team used again the opportunity to share their intentions for implementation of mentoring programmes, involving participants from mentioned target group.
The conference was also an excellent opportunity for establishment of new contacts, exchange of good practices as well as generation of new ideas.
Pictures from the Monitoring conference can be seen in Gallery menu on the web site.
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Invitation for European Conference
For more information about the event, please see the attached .pdf file. *Invitation_WE_EN.pdf
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A Thematic European Conference “Promoting Equal Employment Opportunities”
In the European year of equal opportunities, “Marie Curie” Association initiated an International conference signed: “Promoting Equal Employment Opportunities” Mainstreaming of Educational and training Practices Tailored to Disadvantaged and Elderly People.
The event was held on 10th July 2007 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and co-organiser was the “Workability Europe” Network. Experts from Bulgaria, Great Britain, Belgium, France Poland and Romania took part in the conference. More than 80 guests were familiarised with presentations on themes, in relation with vocational training and employment of people with disabilities and disadvantaged. The training of professionals, working with the mentioned groups, was also in the focus of the presentations. Some successful practices, achieved within European projects, financially supported by “Leonardo da Vinci” programme of the EC, were shared.
Dep. Mayor on Social Matters in the Municipality of Plovdiv, Mr. K. Piskov, welcomed the participants and wished them good luck of their initiatives related to promotion of equal employment opportunities for people with disabilities and those at a disadvantage on the open labour market. Eleven thematic presentations were introduced during the conference. Lecturers were: Mariana Karkovska and Ekaterina Tashkova from the Bulgarian Agency of people with disabilities, Petya Grudeva from “Marie Curie” Association, Karel van Isaacker from “Phoenix KM”, Belgium, Andrean Lazarov from “Marie Curie” Assocaition, Martin Ohridski from “Workability Europe”, David French from “French&Burt Ltd.”, UK, George Taylor from “De Montfort” University, UK, Margaret Durie from EUS Centre, UK and Francis Luveaux from “Agora 56”, France. Their presentations can be found in http://www.benevent.bg/index.php?e=230. Pictures from the conference you can be seen in Gallery menu of this website. If you wish to see summary report of the conference, please follow the link: Summary Report.pdf.
The media in Plovdiv were very active in the popularisation of the conference. Reportages and interviews were presented in the central informational broadcasts of “Eurocom Bulgaria” TV and RTVC “Plovdiv”. “Trud” and “24 Hours” newspapers published articles for the event, too, and radio “Plovdiv” in its morning block broadcasted an interview with Petya Grudeva, PR of Marie Curie” Assocaition.
The team of the association expressed their thankfulness to all the guests from Bulgaria and abroad, who dedicated part of their time to participate in the conference.
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European Conference with title “Accessible mainstream vocational training and employment for people with disabilities”
On 18 September 2007 European Conference with title “Accessible mainstream vocational training and employment for people with disabilities” was held. The event was initiated by Marie Curie Association Bulgaria with financial support of Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European commission. Three European projects: Validation of Mentoring”, “Vocational Improvement Pipeline project” and “Quality and accessible training” were in the focus of the conference. The achievements of these three projects as well as their final products were demonstrated by the project coordinators. A great interest provoked the presentation of piloting couple (employer and employee) from MAX Restaurants Stockholm who participated in VIPP project pilot phase. They shared useful practices achieved in their mutual work. Next presentation was dedicated on Code of Practice – one of the most important products created during the Validation of Mentoring project. The employers hiring people with disabilities and disadvantaged shared that this product could be very useful for the training programmes carried out within their companies. The product was also distributed on hard copies.
32 Participants from 7 EU countries: Bulgaria, Belgium, The Nederland, Greece, France, The United Kingdom, Romania took part in the event. They received promotional materials with interesting information about the VM, VIPP and QaTrain projects.
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International conference in Sierre, Switzerland
On 15th October 2007 in Sierre, Switzerland an international thematic conference related to the matters of vocational training and employment of disadvantaged and elderly people was held. The event was sponsored by the Swiss government and FOVAHM Training Centre. Several successfully implemented “Leonardo da Vinci” projects were presented within the forum. The themes of the presentations were in the field of improvement of the qualification of disadvantaged people and that of the professionals working with them. Several successful approaches and practices aiming to rise the employability of disadvantaged and elderly people were presented.
In 15-minutes presentation “Adults Mentoring” project was promoted to the audience. The representative of “Zgura-M” spoke about the achievements until the present moment and demonstrated the results of the need analysis reports. The accent was on the differences in tendencies, marked in the research in Bulgaria, Great Britain, Poland and Slovenia. Project dissemination materials were distributed among the delegates. As a result many university professors and employers of elderly people shared their interest in the products of the project and wished to have them to use in their practices.
The conference was attended by more than 150 participants from France, Great Britain, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Spain. University professors, European project managers, HR managers, psychologists, representatives of recruitment agencies, elderly and disadvantaged people were among the delegates. These contacts will contribute to the mainstreaming of “Adults Mentoring” Project results.
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Another success for project of ZGURA-M.
During the period 2003-2005 Zgura–M, member of Marie Curie Association, in cooperation with partners from The United Kingdom, Greece and Portugal carried out European project “Virtual Incubator for Prequalification into Resource Tutors for Disabled People”. It was funded by Leonardo da Vinci programme of the European Commission. Two years later the professional development of all project products was recognised positively by the external evaluators working in the field of education and training.
On 29 November 2007 in Sofia an Annual Valorisation Conference “Sectoral programme “Leonardo da Vinci” & ‘Gruntvig” – best practices” was held. Within the event the project has been awarded with “CERTIFICATE FOR QUALITY” issued by Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science and Bulgarian Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.
On a specialised promotional stand the delegates of the conference had the opportunity to view the final project products.
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Induction training for mentors and mentees in Sliven market the beginning of mentoring process in Bulgaria
On 23 January 2008 the two planned trainings for mentors and mentees in Bulgaria were held in the conference hall of Complex for social services Sliven. The theme of the training was “Induction into mentoring programme”. Speakers were Mitko Stamatov and Petya Grudeva from “Euroconsulting” and “Zgura-M” Plovdiv and Diana Tsvetanova from the Municipality of Sliven – organizer of the training.
The morning session was dedicated to the training of mentors. All invited participants were present at the event. They are experienced professionals working in child care field as well as in the sphere of finance and IC technologies. The participants asked many questions concerning mentoring programme and their particular role in it as mentors. They expressed their high motivation and willingness to take part in the programme.
The afternoon session was dedicated to the training of mentees. All of them participated actively in the training and were highly interested in the presentations. The future mentees are people over 50 years of age. Some of them have recently lost their jobs, others are unemployed for years. An interesting fact is that all mentees are women – the majority of them wished to be mentored in practice and to work in the sphere of child care after that. Other ladies were interested in work with computers and new software programmes, helping them to be effective accountants of contemporary manner.
In conclusion we may say that both parties – mentors and mentees, got an exact idea of the essence of mentoring and their roles within it. They shared their satisfaction of that fact after the end of the trainings.
The active phase of mentoring programme in Sliven will start at the beginning of March. Before that additional trainings will be delivered, according to special request on behalf of the mentees. They are planned as follows: training on “How to look for a job in the contemporary labour market conditions” and “How to work with a computer”. These trainings will be carried in February and soon after their end you will find out more if you visit again the official web page of “Adults mentoring” project.
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“Motivation and basic skills for jobsearch” training
The second from 4 trainings for mentees was held in Sliven. In 3 days the participants in the mentoring programme passed a specialised course on theme “Motivation and basic skills for jobsearch”. Trainers were Kremena Ganeva, psychologist, career counselor and Diana Tsvetanova, clinical psychologist, coordinator of the mentoring in Sliven.
In the first day of the training the mentees worked on various techniques for self- knowledge and identification of their strong and weak points. The next day was dedicated to communication with employers, the skills to ask clarifying questions and to control the stress during the search for a job. In the last 4 hours the participants were made aware of the requirements for preparation of personal portfolio as well as of the contemporary ways to search for a job. Role-play interviews with employers were also organised.
The whole process of training was based on game-play situations and communication in group. All metnees received a set with printed training materials.
After the end of the training they shared that the past 3 days were vary useful and valuable for them.
If you wish to join the atmosphere of the training seminar, please look at the pictures Gallery.
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Marie Curie Association will conduct training of the personnel of Shell Bulgaria
The team of Marie Curie Association organised widespread PR campaign in order to attract companies and organisations as members of the newly-established Social Employers network. One of the companies who replied to the call was Shell Bulgaria.
On 13 February 2008 in Shell office in Sofia representatives of the team of MCA Petya Grudeva and Tanya Lazarova met Yulita Decheva and Kamela Slaveikova – Managers from Shell Bulgaria.
The aim of the visit was to present in detail the function principles of SEN, to exchange ideas and to clarify the details on Shell’s future membership. During the conversation Mrs. Decheva, HR Manager, offered MCA to elaborate and implement team training of the personnel of Shell on the theme: “How to work and communicate effectively with people with disabilities”.
The idea is to conduct a three-hour training, including case studies, role-plays and practical guidance. Thus the visit transformed from a simple introduction to a foundation of a successful future cooperation.
At the moment the team of Marie Curie Association is in a process of preparation of the training. Psychologists and authors of training materials for employers will be engaged in the training itself.
More about the advance of the case will be available soon.
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On 20 April 2008 in the EUS office the bilateral monitoring visit was held. The attendees from the Contractor Municipality of Sliven were Dorina Miteva, Nikolina Lovchalieva and from the coordinator Euroconsulting Maria Valkova were attended. The hosts Ron McFarlane and Margaret Durie present the development of all tasks which are undertaken by EUS. The Management Board of the project was satisfied about good management of the activities and very useful presentation of all evidences.
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The mentoring process in Sliven
On 14th May 2008 the team of Zgura-M represented by Maria Valkova and Petya Grudeva met the coordinator of Adults Mentoring project – the Municipality of Sliven, Bulgaria. The visit aimed to follow the development of the mentoring programme in Sliven. The news were more than good – all eleven mentoring couples are working successfully and do not meet any challenges.
The mentees are well-accepted not only by their mentors but also by the staff of the companies and organisations where the mentoring is being held. Three of the mentees have real chances to be employed after the end of the mentoring programme. Although this is not the main aim of programmes of that kind, it is in fact a good indicator that the mentoring is successful and effective.
Let’s mention that the mentees are working on various tasks according to their individual development plans. Three of them are being mentored in nursery schools in Sliven, other three are in kinder-gardens, four more mentees work in private companies and one of them is being trained in a small family hotel in Ichera Resort, near Sliven.
It is expected that until the end of August 2008 the couples will finish their mutual work. Only one couple will end the mentoring process at the end of May, because the mentor is expecting her retirement.
The good results within Adults Mentoring project provoked the interest of professionals towards the capacity and the potential of mentoring programmes. This is the reason why the team working on the project was invited to organise several workshops where the principles and the implementation of mentoring programmes was made clear to the participants. By the present moment the teams of several children gardens in Sliven had the chance to participate in these workshops. In the next 2 months the team working on the project will initiate 3 more seminars in various cities in Bulgaria – there other professionals can learn more about the essentials of mentoring process.
In the next few weeks you can expect more particular information about the working programme of the seminars and the places where they will be held.
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The second monitoring visit in “Adults Mentoring” project partner country was held on 15 and 16 June 2008. The host country was Slovenia. Our partners from the University of Lubliana were so kind to host the representatives of the three Bulgarian partners in the project – The Municipality of Sliven, “Zgura-M” and “Euroconsulting”.
The aim of the monitoring visit was to track the work of our Slovenian partner and to help them overcome the challenges they meet within the project path. During the meetings Jana Rapus-Pavel who is the coordinator of the mentoring programme in Slovenia, shared some interesting facts about the mentors and the mentees there. 12 couples were formed at the beginning of the process and now 10 of them successfully complete their mutual tasks. The work of the mentoring couples was focused on two main spheres – computer work and foreign languages. These two spheres were the most wanted by the mentees because they feel lack of enough knowledge and experience in ICT and foreign languages.
It is expected that at the end of June all mentoring couples will finish the programme. After its end our Slovenian partners will exert their efforts towards involvement of companies and organisations as members of the European Social Employers Network (SEN). As our Slovenian partners said, the local Labour agency has been a very active partner in the recruitment of mentees and now it is expected that their staff will help the University in Lubliana again during the recruitment of SEN members.
Photos from the event you can find in Gallery section.
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The tourist village Ichera, near Sliven hosted a two-day seminar dedicated to the mentoring programmes for older people. The seminar was organised by the Municipality of Sliven in cooperation with the other two Bulgarian partners within “Adults Mentoring” project – “Zgura-M” and “Euroconsulting”. Representatives of almost all social institutions and NGOs in the Sliven region were present at the event. The aim of the seminar was to present the results of “Adults Mentoring” project as well as to popularize mentoring programmes as a successful instrument for support of people over 50 years of age.
Professionals and care providers for people at a disadvantage were specially invited to the forum. The idea of the facilitators was to train the participants in the implementation of mentoring programmes so that in a long term the experts in the social sphere can run similar kind of programmes in their organisations by themselves.
The first day of the work programme was dedicated namely to that theme. Maria Valkova presented in detail the achievements of “Adults Mentoring” project and explained how the participants could use the online training platform, specially designed for people at disadvantaged position. It is valuable to the users because they can learn more on “How to find a job”. Mrs. Valkova presented also the European Social Employers Network and gave valuable advice gained from her personal experience in the organization and implementation of mentoring schemes.
The participants had the chance to learn how they can benefit from the “Code of Practice in Mentoring”, developed within the project. It was presented in detail by Mitko Stamatov who explained the basic principles of planning, implementation and evaluation of mentoring programmes of that kind. Aiming the more precise track of all phases in mentoring, Evidences for successful implementation of mentoring programmes were developed. They were presented by Petya Grudeva who emphasized that these evidences are just an illustration of the main steps undertaken by the coordinators during realization of the programme. They do not aim to evaluate the quality of the work done by the organizers and the participants in mentoring.
The first day of the seminar in Ichera concluded with the presentation of ESTEEM project. There a training in the field of social work will be provided, following the model of Learner –Oriented Quality Assurance Process.
The second day of the event passed in the form of practical training for preparation of project proposal in favour of people at a disadvantage. The participants in the seminar were divided into small groups, where each team had the task to elaborate own project proposal. After the end of the exercise a speaker of each team was elected and he presented the group’s mini-project. The facilitator of the exercise Dorina Miteva gave valuable advice and prepositions after each presentation.
All participants received information about the various funding programmes of the EU. The greatest interest was paid to the presentation of Life-long learning, done by Maria Valkova. Some of the participants declared their wishes to prepare project proposals within this programme and Mrs. Valkova gave the contacts of the Human Resource Development Center within the Bulgarian National Agency, who is the national coordinator of the programme. The two-day seminar concluded with exchange of useful contacts and a working lunch, where the participants continued their conversations in an informal atmosphere.
If you wish to gain more complete idea of the seminar in Ichera, you can visit the Gallery menu and see pictures from the event.
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The official handing of the certificates for participation in the mentoring programme will take place on 4th of September
The mentoring programme in Bulgaria finished successfully in August 2008. The exciting official closing of the process will be in September in the beautiful town of Velingrad, Bulgaria. During the final seminar, certificates for participation will be awarded to all mentees, who successfully completed the programme. The certificates will be handed by Mrs. Dorina Miteva – manager of the project from the Municipality of Sliven and Diana Tsvetanova – coordinator of the mentoring programme.
Some of the mentees already shared their regret that the programme ends. The parting with their mentors is expected to be very emotional. However they shared that the skills and competences they have achieved, will be very precious and will bring sustainable change in their life and workstyle.
More information and pictures form the official closing of the mentoring programme will be published soon in “News” section.
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As you were previously informed, the closing workshop within the mentoring programme was held in Velingrad, Bulgaria on 4th-5th September 2008. The aim of the event was to present the final products of the “Adults Mentoring” project as well as to award the certificates, proving the participation in mentoring process held on the territory of Sliven.
The meeting was held in an informal environment and friendly tone. The mentees once again reassured the project team that the participation in the mentoring programme has changed their life. In their own words: “Now, new opportunities for professional realization are discovered, thanks to the achieved skills, contemporary working methods and last but not least – new confidence in the personal strengths and potential gained.”
Some of the mentors also declared that they are ready to participate again in new programmes of that kind, because in this way they can transfer their skills and can be useful not only to their companies but also to outside persons. The most exciting was the second day, when Dorina Miteva – the coordinator of the programme, awarded the mentors and mentees with Certificates for participation and wished them good luck and persistency in overcoming their potential challenges.
Pictures from the certification could be seen at “Gallery” menu of the site.
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At the end of the project the Slovenian partner in the project, Faculty of Education, Department for Social Pedagogy organized the final event for mentoring couples, steering group members and some other organizations which were interested in hearing the results of the Adults Mentoring project in our and other partner countries. Beside the Slovenian partner the event's participants have been also 8 mentors and 7 mentees, representatives of our steering group: Employment Service of Slovenia, Glotta Nova Educational Center, Third Age University and representatives of some other organizations: MISSS – Youth Information and Counselling Center of Slovenia and Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs. We have been especially pleased to see the Ministry's representative at the final event, who has also presented the employment strategy and programmes for people 50+ for the period 2007 to 2013.
The main purposes of the final event, which took place on Tuesday, 30th September 2008 have been:
- to get feed back of the mentoring couples – their experience in the project, ideas and suggestions for its improvement (in case similar project occurs in the future);
- to present the project's course (from the analysis of the unemployed's and the employer's needs, to the couple's recruiting, and couple's meetings) to our steering group members and other organizations;
- to present project's results in Slovenia and other partner countries;
- to present results of the evaluation questionnaires which mentoring couples filled in in June 2008;
- to get informed of the the employment strategy and programmes for people 50+ for the period 2007 to 2013 – presented by the Ministry's representative;
- to discuss possibilities of wider use of such mentoring programme in Slovenia.
The final event was a success – in very relaxed atmosphere people discussed about the project, mentoring and its advantages, etc. New acquaintances had been formed and with these new chances for possible future cooperaton.
Photos you can find in Gallery menu.
* Because of accessibility reasons .doc version could be provided on request - projects@zgura-m.eu