News

VELIKO TURNOVO, 09–10^TH JUNE 2012

We have the pleasure to announce and invite you to participate in the 9^th Edition of the Children’s Roma Festival ‘Open Heart’ – town Veliko Turnovo.

The festival organized by the Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance ‘Amalipe’ in partnership with the Municipality of Veliko Turnovo. It will be held from 9^th to 10^th  June 2012 in the Park ‘Marno pole’, Veliko Turnovo. Approximately 1,000 students take part in the event each year. They are basically students from different ethnic backgrounds, mainly Roma, who take part in the ‘Ethnic Folklore - Roma Folklore’ classes or other extracurricular activities for educational integration across the country. Also, Roma children form the Balkan region.

The festival aims to give children from different ethnic groups chance to show their creativity and to encourage lasting interest in the learning process as a whole. The program envisages elements from the traditions, crafts, fairy tales and folk music, history, lifestyle and culture of Bulgarian, Roma, Turkish and other ethnic groups in Bulgaria.

This year, Centre ‘Amalipe’ decided to invite international participants join the Festival Program - we expect participation of children from neighboring Balkan countries among which Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Each registered group’s program shall be approximately 10 minutes. Along with the stage program, within the festival a Workshop of Extracurricular activities and Applied Arts is envisaged  with view to foster educational integration, within which each school may show its activity by means of exhibition, posters and other materials that students themselves  have worked out during the school year. Some works can be made on the spot. For this purpose, this year as before, we are going to include various workshops in which children and teachers will be able to produce handmade items, drawings, to let their hair be hennaed, dress up in costumes of different ethnicities, take part in craftsman workshops, and lots of other surprises.

Within thecraftsman workshops, various traditional crafts will be showed. For this purpose, each school - a participant in the festival, willing to participate in this category must forward the materials to us in advance which will be exhibited in a special craftsman’s corner. The deadline for sending the materials is 30.05.2012. If the items are too large, you can bring them with you in advance and specify in application form exactly what do you want to show us and how much space you need.

Center Amalipe is glad to announce this year again the Ethno Fashion Review envisaged to take place during the first day  - 9th June. In this connection, the students willing to participate shall prepare attractive ethno-costumes.

As every year and this year we announce the traditional competition for schools teaching Roma folklore subject titled ‘The Wealth of Folklore: new stories along the beaten tracks’. The competition is open to students of ‘Ethnic Folklore - Roma Folklore’ in the school year 2011/2012 and participation will be evaluated in two categories:

1. Competition for excellence of a group in Ethnic Folklore subject
2. Competition for the most successful individual work in Ethnic Folklore classes

In mid-May, Amalipe will evaluate the received materials from the traveling exhibition ‘My Dream of the Roma and Bulgaria Nowadays’ which stays at different schools taking part in the Program ‘Decreasing the Dropout Rate of Roma Children from School’ this year. We will evaluate the children's essays and drawings into three categories:

1.     Primary school pupils  1 – 4^th  grade

2.     Pre-secondary school 5 – 8^th  grade

3.     Secondary school students 9 -12^th  grade

The most successful essays and drawings will be showed at a special exhibition where, apart from these, materials from all schools produced throughout the year, will also be presented. The winners will be awarded at the closing of the festival, which will be on June 10^th, 2012. Students prepared the three best works in each category will be invited to participate in the festival for free.

Application Form for Participation in the Festival is available. It shall be filled in and electronically submitted to us along with some additional materials (if available).

1. In the Application Form the number of participants shall be specified and a Program   (up to 10 minutes). Each group shall perform a song, or dance, or a fairy tale, reenactment of a ritual or combination of these.

2. Description of its activity along the criteria provided in the Application Form.

3. Works that show the group activity over the year (materials, press article releases, etc.) in support of their performance to facilitate the Jury decision.

4. A DVD/Cd recording of their participation in extracurricular activities over the year (can be send also, by e-mail)

Application Form can be downloaded HERE

The Application Form shall be submitted by e-mail: amalipe.edu@gmail.com, and supplementary materials either by e-mail or ordinary mail:

Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance Amalipe

p.o.box 113,

Veliko Turnovo 5000

Bulgaria

OR

By courier service:

Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance Amalipe,

13 Hristo Botev St,

Veliko Turnovo 5000

Bulgaria

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Contact person: Svetlana Boyadzhieva

Tel: 00359 885-187-414

Fax: 00359 62 600224

Deadline for submission of application: 20^th  April 2012

Checklist od important dates:

CIEDT Amalipe recommends that participants inform us well in advance so that timely hotel reservations in their favour are possible to make. (Confirmation deadline: 20.04.2012).

WELCOME!