Voluntary club “Smile” is back online in the academic year 2022/2023

And this school year, the volunteers from the “Smile” club continue their good deeds. “Vasil Levski” secondary school in the city of Valchi dol is a long-term partner of the “Amalipe” Center under the program “Every student will be excellent”. They are active performers of all elements of the program. Their students regularly attend the trainings at the Leadership Academy of the “Amalipe” Center for students – mentors and Student Parliaments.

The volunteer club, established at SU “Vasil Levski” years ago, never ceases to delight young and old, people, birds and animals, refugees and those in need. In addition, they do not fail to take care of the protection of the environment. With the “The Stump Comes to Life” initiative, volunteers from the “Smile” club beautified the yard in front of the kindergarten by painting a stump. The ants, the fox, the sparrow, the wolf, the bear, the hedgehog, the snail, the ladybug, the frog, the bee and the butterflies came to life on the stump, placed in their natural environment – the forest. Above them shone the smiling sun, rising from behind a small white cloud. Thus they took care of the community of the little ones. We hope we have delighted the little ones from kindergarten who will study the forest animals and develop their imagination. Volunteers are currently running an initiative, connected with two good deeds – protecting the cleanliness of the natural environment and providing funds for food products for the festive tables of the lonely people from Valchi valley. For this purpose, they started packing and preparing the cartons from the school chair for removal to a point for secondary raw materials and subsequent recycling. Another big mission “To give warmth to those who need it!” was prepared and implemented. The

volunteers organized a campaign to collect warm clothes and shoes for primary and junior high school children. With the help of the class teachers, children from socially disadvantaged families were selected and dressed. Club “Smile” also organizes educational initiatives. Thus, 16.11 was celebrated in an interesting way. – The day of tolerance with the mission “Let’s leave a mark!”. Primary students watched a presentation and demonstration of tolerant and intolerant acts and left a mark with their hand and their favorite word of tolerance on a poster with a painted globe. And this year they did not forget the disabled people from the “Hope” club. On the occasion of their international day, the volunteers prepared handmade souvenir gifts – flowers and a festive program of folk dances and people presented at their celebration. The “Nightingale” vocal group also participated in this initiative with two folk songs. During the library’s Christmas Workshop, volunteers made bookends and cards for the bazaar, the proceeds of which will be donated to the library to enrich its collection of beloved books. The biggest and noblest mission “To give a smile to a lonely person” with the addition of handmade greeting cards and food items for the Christmas table was realized with the help of the Timeheroes platform, thanks to which volunteer club “Smile” received donations from all over the country and pleased thirty lonely people from Valchi dol, Mihalich, Brestak and General Kiselovo.

In January, the volunteers organized a relay reading with elementary school students, during which they presented three new children’s books with short annotations: “The Fairy from the Sugar Bowl”, “School – Torment” and “The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner”. Sitting in a circle, volunteers and children passed the books to each other to read a small part of them. Another educational initiative, this time with care and attention to students with special educational needs – interactive winter-themed reading. They presented a holiday with a poem, story or story, sang and danced winter songs together and watched videos and reenactments of the holidays and customs of ethnic groups in Bulgaria. They managed to show that reading, in addition to being useful, can also be fun. In the month of February, the emphasis was placed on health and a healthy lifestyle. “Health – our responsibility”, in which attention is paid to healthy nutrition, good hygiene, prevention and sports, as important elements of a healthy lifestyle.

The “Every student will be a winner” network  includes 287 educational institutions from all over the country that have united in achieving the goals of the Amalipe Center program and supported by the Trust for a Social Alternative. The goals include: dropout prevention and retention of all students in school, increasing the number of reintegrated/re-enrolled children, increasing the number of Roma adults involved in forms of lifelong learning, significantly increasing the percentage of Roma youth, who continue their education in secondary schools/high schools, active involvement of parents in school life.