As the only official European Talent Center in the country, we are extremely pleased to announce that from 29 March to 2 April 2017, a European Gifted Children Meeting took place in Budapest, where our representative and a multiple Foundation award winner - Daniela Karaivanova!
Danny was the only Bulgarian participant in the 5-day meeting organized by the Central European Talent Center! Over 70 talented young people worked together on innovative projects, exchanged experiences, ideas, and learned about the latest talent development practices.
We are proud that we are part of this international organization and we have the opportunity to work for and support talent, to develop the potential of young people and hope for more opportunities for expression and good integration of our children!
We present Danny's impression of the event: "Exciting themes, workshops with inspirational professionals, a rich cultural program, interesting meetings, discussions and new ideas - these are just some of the events during the European Youth Meeting in Budapest. She gathered young talented people from 17 countries who presented the Center for Young Talents in their country as well as innovative ideas and training methods.
Each of the days of the conference was dedicated to a particular topic and all events were related to it. After the arrival of the participants, the conference was unofficially opened with interactive group games. This helped to quickly explore and find similarities and common themes.
The next day the youth meeting was opened by Peter Stermeli, who presented the ETCH and its history. After a presentation of the youth platform and current and future projects, an interesting lecture on the importance of creating contacts for the development of talent followed. And this was the title of the first day of the Youth Conference program. We have learned that this is the basis of creativity in its various forms: as a means of creativity, decision-making and action in familiar and unfamiliar situations. And talent can evolve through the basic ingredients of wisdom and the ability to integrate into a new environment. During his lecture, Professor Scermelli shared with us interesting methods and exercises that can monitor progress and develop our talent in the right direction.
After a short break, the program continued with Lightening TED-Talks, where within 4-5 minutes we could tell about the young talent center we came from, about our passion or share something that inspired us. Speech topics were very diverse from creativity, volunteering and the educational system to book writing and programming. As the only representative from Bulgaria, I gave a short speech reflecting the activities of the Center for Young Talents in Burgas - its vision, mission and projects. By doing so, I have emphasized the importance of everyone being able to use their talent for a good cause. As an example, I gave the annual charity bazaar and my experience with short films and posters on important environmental and social themes ... Because the mission of talent is to share with others. After the afternoon, full of new ideas and inspirational stories, a cultural program followed in the center of Budapest: a boat trip and a visit to the Buddha Castle, from which there is an incredible view over the city.
Day two of the conference was named Day of Talent. During the workshop of William Benko, we discussed what makes an exciting speech. He gave us tips on preparation, structure and presentation itself. Professor Albert Zieger from the University of Nuremberg told us more about the concept of giftedness. Through research and target groups, he has shown us how difficult it is to recognize the child's potential at an early age, as this depends on many factors. Salamanca's education rights were discussed during the presentation of Dr. Silvia Petar-Scarka.
Then we worked in small groups under the Harmonious Students' Rights Scheme. I was part of the group that was exploring Talent Recognition in a school environment. Our idea was at each school at a certain time to conduct a test to determine which children were talented and in what field. The results should be shared with parents and teachers on relevant subjects so that students can receive special attention and opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills. Basic training is needed to identify and promote talent for each teacher. The findings of our work will be given to experts to draw up the final document to be presented to various institutions.
The evening was closed with a cultural program: Hungarian dances. After a brief introduction to the footsteps, we and the participants themselves, joined the dance under the accompaniment of live music.
April, 1 was under the motto Innovations and started at the Central European University. There, Henrik Papp introduced the Be-Innovative mobile application, with which teams can quickly and interestingly gather new ideas for their projects. Using it and the Design Thinking method, we gathered ideas for the different projects of the youth platform. Our project was to make exchanges between students from different youth talent centers. The aim of our group was to show how this exchange can be accomplished and what makes this exchange unique, namely the ability to communicate with other talented children and to attend courses of your interest in another country.
After the presentation of the results, we continued with short workshops moderated by the members of the Youth Platform Board. The first was how to find and support talented students in disadvantaged position. The second was related to one of the platform's projects: creating a poll aimed at talented young people. During the workshop, we discussed the steps to create a poll and compared online and paper forms. In the evening, there were group games and interesting challenges.
The Youth Conference in Budapest was an exciting meeting with talented people on the ETCH Youth Platform. She filled me with inspiration and new ideas, on the other hand it gave me guidance on how to continue developing my talent. Besides, I was introduced to managers from other youth centers who are interested and willing to work with the Center in Burgas. I sincerely thank the opportunity and I am glad that I was part of the event. "