BSF

The Work Balkan Sunflowers Does

Balkan Sunflowers is an international grassroots organisation, founded in 1999 to aid the Kosovar refugees. Volunteers from around the world saw the TV images of the war and refugee emergency. They wanted to help in ways that money could not. They believed that person-to-person contact with aid workers who came to work as friends and neighbors, might help restore community life in ways that emergency aid and political support alone could not.

Balkan Sunflowers believes that international volunteers, participating in local community life, crucially promotes the ideals of a caring and open society. Balkan Sunflowers volunteers come for at least six months, live in vulnerable communities; they organize children and youth activities, and workshops for adults, teach courses, or provide information. They contribute to a climate of trust and self-confidence in which people will more easily discern the opportunities open to them.

You can help!

If you have a special skill or simply work well with people (children in particular), use the application form to register yourself with us and we'll get in touch!

Balkan Sunflowers announces the Learning Centers Network.

Beginning 1 February 2008 the Learning Centers Network incorporates Balkan Sunflowers’ existing learning programs for very marginalized minority children in two Kosovo villages, Plemetina and Gracanica, and will open at least five more centers in 2008-2009, helping one thousand children to stay and succeed in school.

The center in Fushe Kosovo / Kosovo Polje opened at the end of March, with more than 150 children attending homework help and language support programs every day.

The centers include the following programs:

Pre-Primary School Program. The pre-primary activities include games and songs, learning letters and numbers, socializing, and beginning to be comfortable in the language spoken in school – which is often not the language the children speak at home. World-wide studies demonstrate that preschool and kindergarten programs significantly improve school success. For socially disadvantaged children, the potential benefit is profound.

Language Club. Games, songs, cartoons, exercises, reading, and conversation are all meant to help children become verbal in the language of their school. Children in the first two years of primary school take part in this program.

Homework Help. Children come every day to work through lessons, and learn the principles behind what they need to know in school. They receive personal help to do their home-work. Children who are not ready for school are often quickly discouraged from attending, and will stop going in their first few grades. Homework help can be crucial in keeping them in school.

Peer Tutoring. Youth who are in or have finished secondary school are trained and sup-ported to work with the younger children. They learn not only teaching skills, but are supported for their own school work.

Activities. Games, sports, arts, music are part of center activities – though the emphasis re-mains on school. Teens use space in some centers for after school programs. Centers can sponsor festivals for holidays, art exhibits, music and dance groups, for example.

Support. A snack or hot food is served daily to children, an important contribution to many whose families have very limited resources. Notebooks, pencils, and school books are provided to the children. BSF also funnels donated children’s clothing and shoes to kids in need.

Parenting. All centers will hold regular parent meetings and life skills programs, particularly for parenting skills. Often, parents are married very young, have several children by the time they are 21, are unemployed and uneducated. Life skills can help them cope with raising a family, crucially supporting their children, and understanding why their children’s education is important to the children and to the future of their family.

For more information on the
Learning Centers Network