Smokinya Club

Since July the Smokinya Club is progressing and we are happy to have weekly meetings during the evening to share and invite the young people of the community to have a good time around fun activities.
 

Here's a quick plan of what happened in April, and what's coming up in May!

As you know, in Smokinya Foundation we work with international volunteers in order to help youth to find European opportunity and now, we are looking for young people who want to get new working experience as an intern in an interesting environment by making their first step to a career of their dream! If you join us, you will be introduced to the organisation and will be trained how we work. You will be supervised and mentored in a way to set your own goals and learn, practice, develop and master some important life skills and competencies; team work, cooperation, learning to learn, time management, communication and coaching skills, project initiation from A to Z and much more! It sounds great, right? Then click in the following link and become part of the team!

In Smokinya Foundation we know if you are here reading these words, it is because you are interested in the European Union and what is happening there. For these reasons, and taking advantage the European Year of Youth, we are more than convinced that you will find the following tips provided by the Eurodesk platform about how to find and apply to opportunities abroad particularly interesting. So do not wait any longer and take a look now! And if you have not heard about Eurodesk, do not worry, click on the button and discover a new horizon of possibilities!

What about spending five days in Austria surrounded by people from more than eight different countries? Are you interested in improving and developing your entrepreneurship skills? Then this is for you! Apply now to this Youth Exchange and start to learn about self-awareness and resolution strategies for personal and professional challenges, intrinsic motivation, teamwork and decision-making techniques. Hurry up, vacancies are flying!

Writing and project management, organisational skills, conflict resolution, team building... These are all highly valued skills in today's job market. However, there is another characteristic extremely demanded by employers in most sectors that is difficult to have, and even more complicated to acquire; Leadership. Now, thanks to the Erasmus+ Programme you have the opportunity to participate in a 9-day Training Course abroad specially focused on personal development through self-reflection, ingenuity, responsibility and self-knowledge, as key points that will show you the way to improve your leadership skills and become a true leader in your professional and personal life. In addition, it is also available in April, June and July in the Czech Republic, France and Hungary, respectively. It is time to make a change, apply now!

Do you like to travel? Maybe you think your future lies abroad? Or do you just like to have fun in good company? Then you are in luck, because our international team has recently created "Smokinya Poadcast", a digital and online radio show that will touch on many different youth-related topics such as employment, entrepreneurship, studying and working abroad, life experiences and much more. During this first season, we will talk about volunteering and the European Solidarity Corps with Valentina, David, Vicky, Svitlana and Loïs as representatives of this programme in Plovdiv. Are you going to miss the opportunity? Click on the button below and enjoy, learn and laugh.

Every day we hear about European institutions, bodies and agencies, EU legislation, economics and policy that have a great influence on national development in all Member States. But what do we really know about the European Union and how it works? In order to provide our followers with the right information to answer their questions and satisfy their curiosity, we at the Smokinya Foundation have organised a programme of fun facts about the EU that we will publish on our social networks twice a week. Keep an eye on our stories and learn while having fun!

Spring is here, but our motivated team never gives up. It does not matter if it is a sunny, rainy, windy or cold day; our volunteers are firmly compromised with the aim of spreading our values of a word which works for everyone, out of love, care and cooperation. Thus, Smokinya Foundation has been visiting different public and private institutions to share what we are, what we do and what we offer to young people to make a change and improve their lives. Posters and flyers are our weapons, and our good mood and desires our strength, so if you see us working in the streets of Plovdiv do not be surprised! Smokinya and its people are everywhere. Join us for the next time, you will not regret it!

As you all know Masha, our determined volunteer from Saint Petersburg, has been collaborating whit Parallel World, an organization for people with mental and physical disabilities, in order to help them to overcome daily obstacles through music, dance and all kind of team activities. During all this time, many people has asked us about his job there, so what could be better than a post written by herself explaining his role with those smiling people? Click in the link below and discover how sometimes a bit of attention, time and love can change the course of others lives.

Despite the effort made by our current Smokinya Team, sometimes it is not enough to cover all the tasks and workload that we receive. According to this, we are more than glad to say welcome to Elena, our new intern in Smokinya, who will be in charge of supporting our staff in all kinds of duties, from translation and events coordination to help them to redesign the office. Elena has recently finished her studies in the High School and she feels especially motivated to do something useful, out of formal education rules, to acquire relevant experience for the future while doing something good for the local people; that is why she has chosen Smokinya Foundation as a host family. Do you want to know more about here? Click on the link below!

Sooner or later, we all have problems in our lives. Sometimes they appeared in a group of friends, in a couple relationship or even among relatives; but for sure, one of the most common situations is at work. Considering this and knowing the personal and professional relevance that it has for everyone, Smokinya Foundation decided to organise an event specially focused on “Conflicts resolution”. In this way, our followers had to share and debate different uncomfortable situations from their recent past in different groups, choose one of them and reproduce it performing like true theatre actors and actresses in front of the rest, who was in charge of identifying mistakes, good attitudes and aspects which could have been done differently to avoid such problematic experience. Can you imagine a better way to learn by having fun in a cosy environment?

We all know that we are different, with our good and bad sides; human beings are like that. However, it is possible to improve our skills, to refine our tools when we need to communicate with other people with the aim not only to achieve the desired result of our message, but also to avoid possible problems and misunderstandings; something that, unfortunately, happens at work very often. According to this, some days ago in Smokinya Foundation we wanted to give to our loyal followers some tips to deal with different groups of people, from those shy ones to the most energetic ones, in order to create spaces which everyone feels useful and comfortable. If you are wondering which kind or person you are and which is the group you belong to (excitement, togetherness, goals, structure), do not miss our next event!

Life is not always a piece of cake, that is out of doubt; the world in which we have to live is full of problems, challenges and unfair situations that we try to solve everyday. Regarding this, in Smokinya Foundation we thought “Would we be able to create, to design a new world?”. So with the aim of finding the answer to that question, we organised a new event where our participants had the tricky task to build a new country from zero, one where they would feel complete, happy, fearless. And really, believe us if we say that is much more complicated than it seems, because despite their different international backgrounds, our followers had to agree from the national anthem lyrics and the past history of the imaginary country to their current policies! But something was guaranteed; an amazing time in the best possible company. We cannot be sure that it will change the course of events, but every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

May 2022
 

According to the popular Bulgarian saying, we should have good weather next month as there is no letter R in its name, but who knows! What is for sure is that May will be full of surprises, activities and events; interactive simulations of the European Parliament taking advantage of the Europe Day celebration, outdoor exercises, emotion painting and digital skills workshops and most importantly.... Smokinya Foundation's birthday party! Stay tuned to our social networks and don't miss the opportunity to have fun with us!