I’m Tako Gogolauri, from Georgia, representing YPE organization in the job shadowing visit as part of the long term project “Make Europe Hate Free Again”. Our hosting organization Alternativi International welcomed us warmly and organized various activities during our stay in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria.
Here, in city of Blagoevgrad, I had so many interesting working days. I got challenged to carry a workshop for a group of 20 young person as a rehearsal for the next stage of the project “Make Europe Hate Free Again” which are the upcoming youth exchanges in Armenia and Georgia in September and October.
I got to participate in a meeting with the public mediator of the municipality of Blagoevgrad. During the meeting we discussed issues our project tackles as human rights and hate speech. More, I and the other 5 participants in the job shadowing together with representatives of Alternativi International took part in several meetings in the capital of the country, Sofia. We visited an organization called Humans in the Loop which is a social enterprise that is helping refugees in Bulgaria to integrate and find job realization. Another organization that we had an organized meeting was with the coordinator for Bulgaria of Councils of Europe “No hate speech movement” campaign namely the “Infinite opportunities” Association. We had a very intense and deepen presentation of their work related to combating hate speech on local, national and international level. I learnt that it is a NGO established at the beginning of 2010 that is committed to youth work, active citizenship, promotion of non-formal education and encouraging young people to develop their social and creative potential for a better future for everyone.
We had also a meeting with the director of department of Youth field of Erasmus+ at the National agency responsible for Erasmus+ in Bulgaria. We talked about young people’s participation in youth projects and different available possibilities for them.
On my opinion this project is really great chance for developing my skills and to get the knowledge which I’ll share with my friends and colleagues in my country. I think from these activities I’ll I get quite a lot of information and experience.
