Gutenberg - Organizatia Studentilor Vorbitori de Limba Germana

The Gutenberg Association is the only network of German-speaking student and youth organizations in the whole Romania. Our main activity involves organizing projects for Romanian youth on topics such as project management and civic engagement. We organize such projects yearly and we always try to surpass ourselves with every new edition. Going back a few years, we have started trying to extend our reach outside of the national borders. As such, we have been partners in different international initiatives and have ourselves initiated and conducted more than 10 projects for students in or from 8 different European countries. Another important aspect of our work is the self-development of our members through their work on Gutenberg projects. We strongly believe in giving something back not only to our members, but also to our participants and their respective communities with the help of our projects by empowering them to take initiative and change the world for the better. We pride ourselves on being able to follow and achieve our goals with the help of motivated volunteers, German-speaking youth, that can find in our association a group where they can experience a lot, where they can learn and teach, where they are encouraged to challenge themselves, knowing that here they have the support to do it. The fact that they all speak German language gives them from the very beginning the feeling of a group, they share this as a community, and we are proud that we managed to create this association and this space for around 48.000 students that speak German only in high schools in Romania. In Romania, in the national dimension, Gutenberg has 3 student organizations in the big university center, in Bucharest, Cluj and Iasi, and 17 high-school organizations in 17 cities, where students are studying in German. Every year now, in each location, we have at least one project coordinated by the Gutenberg volunteers, empowering them to develop and improve their skills, after they participate at our biggest project in the year, the Gutenberg Summer School. Here, more than 200 students come every year, they improve their German skills and attend the 10 workshops about project management prepared for them. We believe that teenagers are capable of many things, if they have the right support, a mentor, good instruments and knowledge.