Following the thematic working group discussion meetings on Education, Child Justice, Family and Child and Maternal Health, participants in Annual Meeting 2024 had the opportunity to attend five trainings and peer learning groups. These focused on the topics of: fundraising, misinformation and propaganda, mental health, school mediation and storytelling, and working with the media.
“How to develop a fundraising strategy” was the theme of the first training. Its presenter was Nadya Petrova, Head of Fundraising and Corporate Giving at the NNC. The aim of the presentation was to introduce the participants to the basic principles and stages in the strategic planning process, giving them practical guidelines for developing their own fundraising strategy. During the panel, attendees had the opportunity to learn about successful tactics and channels for raising funds from corporate partners and attracting individual donors, as well as examine the key role of donor communication and accountability and how to increase donor trust and loyalty to the organization.
Following the positive feedback from NNC members on the “How Can the Civil Sector Win the Information War?” panel from the 2023 Annual Meeting, we decided to build on the panel in a substantive way and re-present it. The moderator Georgi Elenkov, Director of Policies for Children at NNC, took a journey through fake news and hoaxes from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire to the present day and how Bulgaria’s civil sector specifically can successfully defend its causes from vilification and misinformation. Panelists gained knowledge and skills to:
- Key concepts such as hybrid warfare, disinformation, misinformation, trolling, integral schemes, confirmation bias theory, the Dunning-Kruger effect, etc.;
- research on dozens of historical examples of fake news and disinformation, including the most recent “active measures” against the civilian sector in 2024;
- how to recognize and expose a troll;
- how to talk to their family and social circle about misinformation;
- how to most effectively use their organization’s communication channels to counter disinformation and hybrid aggression, and save causes from defamation;
One of the most attractive seminars for the members was “Archipelago of Emotions” with presenters Diana Andreeva, Education Coordinator and Bella Damyanova, Coordinator of Policies for Children at the National Network for Children. They introduced the participants to the trends in Bulgaria and the EU on the topic of mental health in children and adolescents by involving them in an unconventional way – using the psychodramatic technique. Attendees became direct participants with their experiences, opinions and competences. Based on their expertise and experience, the guests themselves formulated ways and tools for working with children with mental health problems.
On the last day of Annual Meeting 2024, two more trainings were held, one of which was specifically open to the children, youth and supporting adults of the Megaphone Programme, as well as anyone with an interest in peaceful school conflict resolution. The panel “Student mediation against school bullying” and its moderators – Georgi Elenkov and Kristina Nenova, coordinator of “Children and Youth Participation” of NNC, aimed to answer the questions – How can students be empowered to solve peacefully the problems of aggression, bullying and conflicts in the classroom? and How to negotiate successfully, to name and assert their interests and needs, to empathize truthfully and enter “into the shoes of the other”?
It included a plethora of educational videos, exercises, discussions and games that helped the participants to learn theoretically and practically about student mediation and effective negotiation in cases of aggression, bullying and conflict in the classroom. We sent them on summer break in the hope that they will put what they learned into practice from the new school year. 🙂
One of the most difficult tasks in the work of a non-communicator has always been how to turn ordinary information into an interesting story. Well, the panel “How to tell the stories of our daily work (storytelling) and working with media” taught us just that. The guest presenter from Free Europe, writer and journalist Boyan Tonchev, presented to the Network members successful tactics for creating engaging narratives through personal stories to arouse interest, impress and show the value of an organization’s work for a specific community or the whole society.
The 2024 Annual Meeting is being implemented as part of the INSPIRE: Improving National Support for Prevention, Intervention and Response to Violence against Children and Empowering Victims project. Its main objective is prevention and response to violence against children and empowerment of victims. The project is implemented by the Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation (WCFI) and the National Network for Children (NNC) and is co-funded by the European Union.
