National Organisation of Romanian Scouts - Centrul Local Aetos Drobeta Turnu Severin

Scouting is one of the world leading youth educational movement – and the biggest and most important movement in Romania. In our city, we have weekly meetings with the scouts (we are a number of 160 members in our local group), during which we use the Scout method in order to inspire a value-based system for the youth. Our target groups are young people aged 14 – 24. The Scout method, which is the non-formal educational system we implement, is comprised of the following elements: Learning by doing, Personal progression, Team system, Adult support, Symbolic framework, Nature, Community involvement, Scout Promise and Law. Besides the weekly meetings, we organize a couple of big yearly events, in order to bring a positive change in our community and impact a large number of people: - we organize the „Light Festival” – an event that gathers more than 3000 people for one evening, in order to celebrate the beauty of small things - we organize the „Opening of the Scout Year” – a huge treasure hunt for youngsters, that takes place throughout the city for several hours - we organize TEDxYouth@DrobetaTurnuSeverin – a conference that brings various speakers, from various fields, in order to spread innovative ideas in our community - we organize EarthHour – each year, we talk to the people who join this event about the effects that our actions have on Earth - we organize summer camps and winter schools for young people from our community. The last summer camp which we organised involved 92 young people who camped in the mountains for 10 days, doing non-formal education activities, and being in charge with organizing the food and shelter - we implement 3, maximum 4 Erasmus+ projects per year that are strictly related to our aims and vision, in order to improve our competencies, and help young people feel more European - we have good partnerships with the main stakeholders from our city: public institutions, schools, media, businesses As contextual information, we implement our activities in one of the poorest areas in Romania - our region is constantly in the tops related to high unemployment rates, low medium salary. A lot of young people are moving away for studying and do not choose to return here. Also, there are not a lot of opportunities for young people in our region - they have very limited options for spending their free time. Scouting is such an option - one that is becoming more and more popular, as young people (and their parents as well) find value in the activities we are implementing. We started the group in 2014, with 10 young people, and in 2020 we are more than 170 members. The young people in our area need extra-curricular activities and opportunities to take initiatives and implement different ideas (and also coordinate small teams). As such, all yearly projects are coordinated by them - we select one or two main coordinators, and they create their own team, and plan and implement all activities within an event. The adults, youth workers are there to support and mentor these processes.