The Bodvaj Association (Bodvaj Egyesület in Hungarian) is a youth association, which was founded in 2003 by 5 young people aged between 19 and 25, living in Kisbacon. Kisbacon is a small village (500 inhabitants) in a rural, isolated area in Covasna County (Kovászna megye in Hungarian). The association's main aim is to represent the interest of the youth from the village at local, regional, national and international level.
Target group:
The target group of our association: children, youth (age between: 14-35 year), disadvantaged people (geographical and economical disadvantages) from the village Batanii Mici. We extend some of our activities to the microregion Woodland (Erdővidék)/Depresiunea Baraolt.
Aims:
Our aim is to give possibilities for our target groups to spend their spare time by doing useful activities. Every summer our summer camps offer for more than 100 participant an alternative way of learning and spending "quality time". According to our aim we organize yearly several youth projects in the cultural or environmental fields. We support our youngster's bottom-up initiatives and help implementing these initiatives. We also try to give the same possibilities for the youth living in our village as others with the same age in other countries all over Europe. We have good relationships with local and county municipalities, youth associations from Romania and abroad, youth supporting organisations at county and national level.
Activities:
Our association has three big program for children and especially youth per year. The environmental camp in July where children and youth learn the symbiosis with the still unpolluted environment, develop their capacities and abilities. The creative camp for children and youth in August where the target group can surmount their disadvantage due to the isolated area, undeveloped communications skills, and can improve their creativeness, strengthen their self-confidence. The Fairy-Tale Days at the end of September where more than 100 young people get acquainted with the traditional craft activities in a fairy-tale world. During all programs young people with different backgrounds work and play together in order to get to know each other better, to get acquainted with another culture.
Geographical difficulties:
The Bodvaj Association works in an isolated rural area, thus our staff and experts have enough experience in working with youngsters who have geographical difficulties. Since 2003 we are working to improve this situation, to ensure access for our youngsters for those facilities and opportunities which are not available in this area. Nevertheless our effort has made it`s result in the target group which we are dealing with, and this result has started to be measurable by this time.
Cultural differences:
The Bodvaj Association collaborates with several international trainer and experts who have a lot of experience in working across cultural barriers, and able to offer for young people the maximum support on overcoming these challaneges.
