Roundtable in Tîrgu-Mureș about problems faced by youth
The Find your way to the world of work project is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment.
On the 30th of October, in Tîrgu-Mureș, the mentors in Find your way to the world of work program met with professionals from different local institutions. The workshop, which debated the work with youth coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, gathered professionals from children’s homes, child protection institutions and other programs and NGOs which work with youth.
During the meeting, the following conclusions were set: we should focus on one of the main tasks of the education, which is education for life. Unfortunately, many young people – despite being at the age of majority – are not able to tend to self, do not know how to manage a household, how to plan and save money, how to fill out an official application or a CV or even to communicate in the language of the country. Sadly, young people’s self-sufficiency in their basic needs is very lacking. The current child protection system also does not support these young people in acquiring, enhancing and strengthening these competences.
A lot of people think a youngster – especially the one living in a children’s home – is given too much: as an adult, they are still in need of those services, attention and guidance they received in the home. The youngster who was brought up in an institute feels unable to act and formulate aims independently. According to other insights, when a young person leaves the system, he is unfortunately not checked up on.
This aspect is more present in roma children’s case, as in we can feel they are in a constant search of their identity. Even if we try to raise them as Romanian or Hungarian children, we will not succeed, because they feel their identity and culture is different. It would be useful for them to get to know their culture, to respect their strengths and to find their place there. It’s not effective if we force them to be something they were not born to be. I recommended the LIFE STORY WORK method to explore someone’s identity, this is a great opportunity and technique to develop someone’s identity.
At the moment, the most appropriate solution is the role of the mentor, who sees the youngster as an individual who has a personality and a competency development of their own. A person, who is able to pay attention and is interested in their thoughts, dilemmas, purposes, as well as will give advices and fights for the happiness and well-balanced lifestyle of the mentored youngster. A mentor will help in developing self-confidence and competences in an atmosphere of confidence.
We would like to strengthen our work with close cooperation, as a result we created a private group which will help us to follow, strengthen and help each other’s work.
Bojoievschi Éva
The Find your way to the world of work project is funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment.
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