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Dana Trombitasova – fellow from Slovakia

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BIG FOTOMs. Dana Trombitasova works in Agency for Development of Gemer region in Hnusta, south of Slovakia as a coordinator for international activities. The focus of agency´s actions is on initiation, realization and coordination of strategic activities for multilateral and dynamic development of Gemer region. The Gemer region in one of the poorest regions in Slovakia with the highest unemployment rate. Ms Trombitasova has been working mainly with young people and youth workers from Gemer region focusing on rising public awareness by organizing, mediating and providing information about trainings, seminars, workshops, conferences, exhibitions and presentations of regional projects.

Ms Trombitasova is a co-writer and project manager of international training and networking course for youth workers with a name SigNature. The main aim of the project is to provide greater understanding of interconnections between formal and non-formal education by using natural resources and activities in nature as a non-formal learning environment within the educational process. Ms Trombitasova works closely with Roma youngsters while helping them to be easier included into educational process by using non-formal educational tools. As the coordinator of international projects brings closer opportunities of trainings, education and volunteering service abroad to Roma youngsters in order to broaden their horizons and to develop their soft skills and communication in foreign language to rise their chances on a labor market.

revuca04

Revuca foto: www.najkrajsikraj.sk/

Ms Trombitasova has Master degree in Tourism from University of Matej Bel in Banska Bystrica and Bachelor degree in Management from University of Presov in Presov. She has spent one semester in Spain where she was studying subjects of EMTM – Erasmus Mundus Tourism Management program. During her studies she has participating in various trainings and seminars regarding to leadership skills, communication skills, entrepreneurship and start-ups. As a volunteer she was working with normal and disabled kids in kindergartens providing animotherapy with ponies. Ms Trombitasova has participated also on various international trainings and networking courses for youngsters and youth workers focusing on democracy, ecology and sustainability and project writing by using non-formal educational tools and methods. Ms Trombitasova has participated on Global Community Development Project in Sri Lanka, where she was working 2 months as a volunteer for Sri Lanka´s NGO. Her tasks were management and marketing of community projects, organizing events for under-privileged kids, fundraising, donation activities and direct work with under-privileged schools and communities.

Vermont

Vermont

Ms Trombitasova is fascinated by success and power of bottom-up actions. She would like to work more with young leaders from Roma minority and gain new knowledge and experience in organizing of community to be able to create sustainable projects where members of community will point out their problems and become to be active and creative in finding solutions. This will be her first trip to the United States. Ms Trombitasova would like to gain new knowledge and skills relating to community organizing to be able to use this method in a proper way in work with communities in her region. She consider the right way how to achieve it to learn from successful community organizers who have visible results and in the U.S. – country where community organizing was born.

Ms Trombitasova is fluent in English, can communicate in Spanish, understands German and has basic knowledge of Polish and Russian language.  She is a proactive and communicative person with can-do attitude and sense for detail, who wants to help to improve life in her region and see results of her actions. In free time, Ms Trombitasova likes to spent time in nature by hiking, jogging, cycling, skiing and rock climbing and she likes to relax with good book. She also enjoys travelling, get to know new cultures and to learn foreign languages. Ms Trombitasova will have her internship at United Valley Interfaith Project (New Hampshire/Vermont)

Blazhka Dimitrova – fellow from Bulgaria

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blagichkaBlazhka Krasteva Dimitrova is a teacher in “Teach for Bulgaria” Foundation, part of multinational organization “Teach for All”, since 2013. Her primary mission as a teacher is to give a quality education to every child regardless of its social status. During the two years of the program for teacher-leaders organized by the Foundation Blazhka achieved notable results with her students who were labeled as stupid and not worthy. At the end of the 2013/2014 school year, the Foundation made a film about her and her students because of the enormous progress made in a year and the positive change in 12th grade’s classroom. Except 12th grade she teaches 11th and 5th as well. She teaches English, Theatre and Cinema, Professional and Personal development classes and frequently invites famous people and role models in the classroom, who share their life experience and the reasons for their success.

Furthermore Blazhka is dedicated to volunteering in all forms. At the moment she is working together with her students on a “Volunteer club” at the school she is teaching in. During the last year she has been working hard as a mentor to disadvantaged youths as part of her volunteer work for “Step for Bulgaria” Foundation. As a mentor she meets with her youth who is Roma every week and they set goals for themselves, plan future steps to lead them to success and evolvement, they talk about life. Every month mentors and their youth get together at an organized from the volunteers event. These events always have a theme which is of importance to the youngsters. During the events everybody works together, they learn new things through fun and interactive methods.

Sofia

Sofia

Blazhka is also a volunteer as a trainer and a leader in “The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award”. This is a personal growth program for young people that combines practical experience and skill development the result of which are young, responsible citizens of the world. Blazhka devotes a big part of her time to motivate young people to become part of the Award and to develop themselves.

During her student years Blazhka proves herself as an active person with a strong position and a person who wants to grow and develop. She has worked at a leading radio media as a co-host in the morning show and an author of articles. During the years she becomes more and more familiar with children’s rights through her internship in the Ombudsman’s Institution and then through her internship in the Institution of Modern Politics, where she spends months of hard work into creating an Internet site, containing all of the children’s rights and responsibilities, described in a understandable for them language.

Country Church With Autumn Color Of Sugar Maples Greenfield, New Hampshire

Photo: Ron and Patty Thomas Photography

In school she has been awarded multiple times at different events. Her desire for constant learning takes her to Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridksi” where she finishes her Bachelor’s degree in “Public Administration”. After that she is accepted for a Master’s degree in “National Security and Defense” in the Military Academy “G. S. Rakovski”. Alongside with that she also finishes a postgraduate qualification in English Literature and Pedagogy as a part of her teacher-leaders program in “Teach for Bulgaria”.

In her spare time she likes to go to the theater and to cook. Her passion for confectionery finds expression in a site that she herself creates, in which can be found more than 40 of her favorite recipes. She loves learning new languages. She speaks English, basic Spanish and French. In 2011 she worked in the United States under the program “Work and travel” and this trip to America will be her second. She believes that the US Fellowship Exchange Program will give her a lot of practical experience to apply in her work and through that to achieve a positive change for the community with and in which she works. Blazhka will have her internship at United Valley Interfaith Project (New Hampshire/Vermont).

Ivana Raposova – fellow from Slovakia

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Ivana Raposova
Bratislava, Slovakia 

Ivana Raposova works as a Junior Research Fellow in the Centre for Research of Ethnicity and Culture (CVEK) an independent research institute dealing with the minority issues and minority rights in Slovakia. Ms. Raposova deals with the issues affecting the quality of life of a variety of minorities in Slovakia. She is mostly interested in the situation of Roma and migrants.

Ms. Raposova is currently doing a research on good practices in inclusive education at Slovak elementary schools. She also takes part in the campaign “Slovakia for All”, which aims to bring together minority community leaders and human rights activists across Slovakia and help them to find the common ground, unite and strengthen their voice. It is precisely this latter activity that she incorporated into her pre-departure activities, and in which Ms. Raposova could benefit tremendously from the GLC training later on, as the minority communities in Slovakia are generally politically, as well as publicly, underrepresented and very fragmented.

In the past, Ms. Raposova used to be a youth leader working actively with the group of children and young adults in YMCA. She used to organize regular meetings, trips, summer camps, as well as the trainings for other youth workers. In 2013, she spent 4 months in Nepal teaching English in the rural community school. During her volunteer years, Ms. Raposova has attended several trainings in leadership, youth work and experiential education. However, she has not had a chance to participate at a training focused specifically on community organizing. Given her current occupation and interests, this competence can be crucial for her future work with the minorities in Slovakia.

Bratislava, Slovakia

By education Ms. Raposova is a Sociologist. She has acquired her Master’s Degree from the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, where she is currently persuing her Ph.D. As a part of her studies Ms. Raposova spent one semester at the Bosporus University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her current research interest is directed towards community urban festivals as means of overcoming social tensions and creating inclusive common places. She prefers ethnographic qualitative methods trying to understand the perspective of the people. She speaks English, German and Czech.

Ms. Raposova has been to the United States already three times, always working during the summer through the “Work and Travel program”. She always loves coming back and discovering new and deeper layers of the complex and diverse American society. She would like to use the opportunity to visit the States once more to acquire a better understanding of the American civil society, especially how the NGOs operate and how the community work is being done.

Charlottesville, VirginiaMs. Raposova would prefer to work with migrants, refugees, Romas and youth. The acquired knowledge and skills she would like to use in order to professionalize her own work with the minority communities and their representatives. She possess strong organizational skills; she has a team-player soul, and she has a passion for education, both, as an educator, as well as a constant learner.

In her free time Ms. Raposova loves travelling, getting to know new cultures and cuisines, doing yoga or jogging. She is vegetarian trying to avoid the dairy products.

Ivana will have her internship at Virginia Organizing (Charlottesville, Virginia) together with the fellows Peter Petek and Cristinela Ionescu

Bence Pal – fellow from Hungary

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Bence Pal
Budapest, Hungary

Bence Pal has been working as an intern at the Habitat for Humanity Hungary since July 2013. First he supported the organization’s Donor Relation manager activities, and then he was responsible for grant writing. From the fall of 2014 Mr. Pal has started to assist the Habitat Resource Centers which operate in some Roma communities in Hungary. Their goals include advocacy and searching and sharing best practices to reduce housing poverty especially among minority communities.

At the Habitat for Humanity Mr.Pal witnessed the birth of the new strategy of an NGO that emphasized the situation of the Roma people in Hungary and the coping strategies through resolving their housing poverty issues built on the people’ – who experienced the program – will to act, and to their efforts to solve their own problems. (Habitat’s core approach is also more like to ‘teach to fish’ instead of just ‘giving a fish, in other words it involves actively the beneficiaries.)

Mr. Pal is also involved in the community organizing project of the Aurora Community House. The Aurora street and its neighborhood is a very diverse place with a lot of potential, but it is also a stigmatized area of Budapest. The community organizing team would like to unite the locals here, give them back a positive identity about themselves, strengthen their abilities to represent their self-interest, regarding different issues they may concern them, and also cooperate or/ and step up for the change towards the local decision makers.

Budapest, Hungary
photo: Emil Metodiev

Previously Mr. Pal was volunteering for the cause “Fair Trade” that has a common approach with community organizing. It builds on the inner resources of the people, so they can shape their own life by making their own decisions and efforts. He was promoting the cause itself in Hungary as well, and was volunteering at a Finnish NGO called “Uusi Tuuli” (New Wind) that supports indigenous people in Mexico, also by selling their coffee. Thanks to the opportunity Mr. Pal had a chance to meet oppressed people from India and Mexico as well who were trying to mobilize their inner resources also by producing goods by Fair Trade standards.

Mr. Pal continuously seeks opportunities where he could make a difference and help other people, therefore he was and is involved in many projects and causes in Hungary and abroad as well. His view is nowadays that it is achievable to make this world and Hungary a better place through strengthening small local communities, and by multiplying their experience that relevant changes are really possible. Shaking up small group of people, who lost hope, and shaping a community of them, giving back their faith in themselves by respecting their decisions, can make them believe again – or first time in their life – that they really can have an impact on their own lives.

Mr. Pal studied communication (journalism) and encountered with the diversity of the minority issues through his Finno-Ugric studies. (There are different minorities with different situations and different historic roots; therefore with different rights and levels of autonomy in countries where Finno-Ugric people live, from Norway through Baltics to Russian Federation.) He speaks fluent in English and has intermediate language skills in German, and beginning in Spanish.

Mr. Pal participated some of the community organizers training in Hungary that prepared him to his recent neighborhood organizing activities working with minorities in a poor neighborhood of Budapest. He also participated in a fundraising-training at the Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights (DEMNET Hungary) because he thinks that is crucial for NGOs, CSOs, and citizens in grassroots organizations to learn how to use different fundraising tools and methods to achieve their goals or obtain financial resources for their projects.  He would like to see a development on this field in Hungary and see the increasing prestige of fundraising as an everyday activity and as a profession in Hungary as well.

Mr. Pal never traveled to the United States before. During the fellowship in the U.S., he would like to gain practical experience on community organizing basics, so he can do a better job in different organizations where he is currently involved including how to motivate people and to make them believe in themselves, how they can discover and use their own resources to build power in minority communities, how to raise funds in the community for causes that are not particularly popular.

Bence will have his internship at Seed House (Wichita, Kansas) together with Dilyana, Monika and Claudia