Fundacja Atalaya

Atalaya is an educational foundation founded at the end of 2014. We are mainly focused around education and supporting youth and young adults in their quest for designing and fulfilling their plans for self-development. Our mission is creating a safe space for meeting the developmental needs of teenagers in foster care as well as their closest surrounding. We support them in their personal growth throughout their lives, focusing mainly on empowerment, building relationship skills and strengthening self-esteem. Our educational programs are prepared to suit the needs of our participants, utilize innovative methods of teaching and a proactive approach to learning and a personal responsibility for one’s own personal growth. We dedicate our projects predominantly towards foster care - both institutional care (young adults, youth, children) and foster families (parents, legal guardians). In order to share our philosophy we also have educational and self-development projects open to the public both in Poland and around Europe which are rooted in alternative and innovative methods of teaching and learning. We actively participate in many initiatives for NGOs in Poland and have already created strategic partnerships with organizations from other countries in projects „VIAME: Values In Action – Method Exchange”, "Experience Creativity", "conVERSation - Slam Poetry for Youth Inclusion", "In Charge of time" and "Meet me halfway". Atalaya organizes various trips and educational programs for foster children and teenagers, such as: “In contact”, „Empathy in Education”, „Trampoline” and „Investing in Me”. These projects are also aimed at improving their feeling of self-worth and support them in the difficult transition to independent life outside of institutional care. Our goal is to empower the participants through educational workshops and trainings meant to improve their communication, teamwork and conflictresolution skills. Recent projects have also shown us the need for helping youth step outside their comfort zone in order to have a better understanding of other cultures and to practice English. Inspired by our main goal we aim to: – initiate and support projects in the fields of: education, prophylactics, therapy, pedagogy and counseling, – foster the idea of lifelong personal development, – launch programs aimed to increase adults’ and children's engagement in their educational process, – support education, arts, culture and environmental protection initiatives, – encourage an active participation in our community, – initiate projects aimed at building: social and professional skills, entrepreneurial skills as well as a personal responsibility for our self-improvement.