Petrklíč help, z.s.

Petrklic help z.s. is a civic association founded in 2005 residing in Český Těšín - a town of 30 thousand citizens situated at the border with Poland and close to Slovakia (cca 40km distance to the borderline). Our Motto is: WE ARE GIVING YOUNG PEOPLE A SPACE FOR CREATIVITY. Our organisation has a long term experience with non-formal education, volunteering, youth empowerment and development of their ideas, transnational and international cooperation, ecology and youth participation. Our Vision is to be a place/an organisation in Silesia region, where people find a space for creativity and opportunity to volunteer, develop, learn, relax and have fun. Our Mission is to help young people be successful by helping them to find the opportunity to make their ideas happen. Our association offers a large number of activities in variety of environments. Due to the long time of our existence we have managed to build a big network of organisations and activities in which we are involved. Our main and the biggest initiative that takes 9 months of organisation is multicultural tea festival Svátek čaje - offering sharing tea culture via lectures and degustations, best practices and self-development via workshops, Living Library workshop, concerts and many other festival activities while involving also local volunteers. The whole idea of the festival is supporting the environmental, human rights, multiculturality, youth and European cooperation topics. Within our experience lies: Crossborder cooperation It is a connection of czech-polish volunteering activities. We support czech-polish contacts among youth, organisations and municipalities of both towns. We connect human resources of border cities and grow their potential. Our organisation is in the midst of historical region of Silesia Teschinensis, in a two towns divided by the river into Czech (Český Těšín 25 000 citizens) and Polish (Cieszyn 30 000 citizens). This is the reason why as one of our key activity we have been developing crossborder cooperation between Polish and Czech young people. Non-formal education WE have been opening a space to learn and critical thinking about the activities around us. Our goal is active involvement of young people into events in public space, which means: "leave the school and go to the streets". We have been focusing on another person, on community of people, on communication and group-work, to notice the most basic but at the same time most complicated value - interpersonal relationship. Entrepreneurship promotion Increasing employability of young people and support of future working opportunities for young people without limits of border region. We have been cooperating with the city of Karviná and Silesian University Business Gate Academy. This program is showing unique connection of businesses with students (university and high school), where both parts find it useful. Students (young people will apply knowledge acquired during their studies while managing real projects and obtain experience in their field. Businesses receive a final project from marketing field, sales or IT. Youth Initiatives Creating a space where young people can implement their creative ideas and test new approaches. We support young people who come with initiatives designed by themselves. We have been consulting and supporting them in organisational processes, financing, analysis of needs of young people, medium-term forecast included. We also train and coach youth in aim to increase their ability to finish the initiated initiatives. Youth Participation Involvement of youth in local community activities through cooperation with local authorities and NGO life. We have been cooperating with 80 active young people who are members of Youth Councils in 3 towns (Karviná, Český Těšín, Třinec). Within a realisation of sectorial non-formal and free-time activities young people learn to communicate with local authorities, themselves and other leisure groups. Our activities enable crea