25 Jul RAISE Youth Regional Center had its 3rd birthday in the end of July

The holiday was celebrated with numerous workshops and meetings with young people on July 22.

The host of the event was Emanuela Kostadinova – a participant in the “RAISE graovo” embroidery workshop. Her colleagues from the workshop also got involved, along with the “Dream Trap” workshop led by Emanuela Kostadinova and the “Let’s knit with lavender” workshop led by Zivka Marinova. Attendees painted alongside EcoEtnArt and had a pottery lesson led by Kristina Germanska.

Young people from the International Youth Center – Pernik also took care of the good mood of all the participants of the celebration by means of fun board games.

Desislava Alexandrova – regional coordinator of the center, presented information about the young people who participated in the activities organized in the past 3 years. Thanks to the RAISE Youth project, 1,179 young people from the Pernik region have been involved in some form of activity, and 709 of them have participated in various thematic trainings, including storytelling, beekeeping, herbalism, embroidery, tourism services, sustainable agriculture, entrepreneurship for beginners and advanced, NGO creation and management, mountain guide and digital marketing.

This is far from all – since the creation of the center, two tourist routes have been prepared. A tourist mobile application was also developed – https://travelsofiawest.eu/ . The producers of fruits, vegetables and other products had a platform to show their products thanks to the farmers’ markets that the youth from the center organized.

And although we have achieved a lot in these 3 years, our ambitions do not end here!

The development of a chat bot with artificial intelligence to be at the service of tourists from near and far who want to visit the regional town of Pernik is nearing completion. A new gamified route in Trun municipality is also ready for the more adventurous ones. The construction of a new generation greenhouse, where vegetables will be grown using soilless technology, is about to be built.

All of this is happening with the support of the local authority, which the youth center is very much looking forward to in the future so that the place can continue to generate ideas and inspiration for local youth. Mrs. Alexandrova expressed her gratitude in this spirit to Mr. Vasil Uzunov – Mayor of the Municipality of Breznik and his team, to Mr. Ivan Tinkov – Chairman of the Municipal Council – Breznik, to Mrs. Stanimira Hadjimitova – Director of the Center for Sustainable Communities Development.

The RAISE Youth project gave not only an opportunity for development to the young people of Pernik, but also planted in them the seed of faith that they can afford to dream! The project has teached them how dreams become goals and how motivating and fulfilling their pursuit can be!

A modest cocktail after the official part of the event gave the opportunity for more exchange of experiences and ideas and ended with promises of shared endeavors and the continuation of the life of the center for at least another 30 years!