Why have you decided to participate in the competition?
I have always admired the people involved in community life service, people capable of changes, people who want to make a difference in the world and who inspire others to do the same. I want to be one of those who are fighting for a better world and to involve others in volunteer programmes or activities.
That's why the International Programme “Your Ideas Your Initiatives” seemed perfect to me and my students from the beginning. The idea of working for responsible behaviour among the community in which we live is, I think, the main purpose of the education process.
How did the students work on the project?
Implementing a project for this international competition was a challenge that my students embraced with great enthusiasm. They worked as a team, with pleasure, joy and passion. I admired them very much, because the project activities were extremely serious and they have shown a lot of responsibility, never complaining that it would be too difficult. To manage to get the City Council and Mayor, Local Police and Gendarmerie involved in a school project is not an easy thing. But the fighting spirit of my students and the desire of making positive changes were decisive.
How did they react when they knew that they were among the 3 winners?
We were aware that the project was a good one, but when we saw that there are 79 projects of 15 countries, we were not so confident anymore. That is why the news that we were one of the three winners has generated a fantastic euphoria. Some children began to cry of happiness, others started to jump, others did not believe it. We all decided that we will continue the project and the activities that we started.
Do you think that being awarded may help your project in the future?
We communicated the results to the City Council and Mayor, Local Police, whose representatives immediately congratulated us. The changes proposed by the students in the project and promised as solved by the Mayor have not been implemented yet, but it is an important thing that an experienced and rigorous international jury considered our ideas very good for the community. The fact that we were awarded should count in the Mayor's agenda and put them into practice as soon as possible.
The management of our College, the teachers of the school congratulated us and they were very interested in a possible participation in future editions. The entire project and the results of the competition were posted on the school's website www.cnnb.ro/parteneriate/proiecte . Therefore, our activities are visible and are a good inspiration for all the students and teachers in our College and in other Romanian schools as well.
Although we are not at school now, our inspiration is not on vacation. I permanently receive messages from my students with ideas for future projects. So we can't wait to meet again and see to what challenge we will respond next.
All the best from Romania!