Empower Students through Leadership Training

This year’s Student Leader (SL) Program accepted 39 nominated students from 23 schools across Bulgaria. The students are to assist create teams that will compete at BEST Foundation’s speech and debate tournaments, as well as help the teams with practice sessions, be the link between competitors and teacher coaches and work on various projects throughout the year. 

From September 24 through September 26, we hosted the SL Training at Hotel “Forum”, Sofia. The event’s goal was to prepare the new student leaders of the speech and debate teams in schools across Bulgaria for the year ahead.  The training focused on teaching valuable lessons in leadership, communication, time management and problem-solving and to help the student leaders create a strong community for the year to come.

“The SL training was my highlight of the month. It helped me improve my planning in detail and time management skills, as well as gave me an opportunity to work on my anxiety when it comes to presenting a project in front of an audience. It also gave me a better understanding of the importance of having a sustainable community project.” – Katerina, HSM “D-r Petar Beron”, Varna

A large emphasis was put on initiating and implementing community projects which would help the students contribute to their local community outside of the BEST world. Student leaders were divided into groups and had to come up with their own mini-project under the guidance of a management team member. Then they presented it in front of everybody and were given valuable feedback. 

In addition, we had the honour to welcome several guest speakers such as volunteers from the Arete Youth Foundation that told us more about the community projects they create, Dr Harvey from American University in Bulgaria who led an improvisation workshop, our debate coordinator, Julia, who reached out to the SLs in a discussion concerning the debates for the upcoming year and Kristiyan who talked about the YES program and the opportunity of studying in the US for a year in high school.

The SL program aims to teach students how to lead a team and make a positive impact on the community. These goals are achieved through attending an SL training, completing two pre-tournament projects and a community project. Awards are given at the end of the year for the most outstanding performances. Most importantly, the program creates a sense of belonging among the SLs which is vital for the BEST community.

Currently, the students have submitted their proposals for the community projects they will implement in the Spring semester. The topics range from environment care, music education, lectures on higher education topics, and entertainment. One of the proposals that stand out is by Student Leaders from Prof. Dr. Asen Zlatarov Foreign Language High School in Haskovo: educating the city on animal rights and working with the local zoo to improve the quality of animals’ lives.

We look forward to working with the students and seeing their projects come to fruition in May.

Thank you for your continued support and we wish you very happy holidays!

In May, fourty three student leaders gathered online, to present the hard work they have done throughout the semester creating and implementing their community projects. The students came from 29 schools in 22 cities across Bulgaria. Their community projects covered a wide variety of topics such as: friend matching program, information video of a town, supporting a new city library by book donations, podcast program of a school's success stories, visual art and literature fesitval, a board game club to reduce stress, enhancing a school's website. The closing seminar was led by the Student Leader Coordinator and Intern and several BEST Foundation management team members who acted like judges. Student leaders presented their projects in the format of power points or video presentations followed by a five minute Q&A.

Presiyana and Tatyana from Geo Milev Foreign Language High School in Dobrich were awarded the student leader of the year award for succesfully leading their team and creating a wonderful team spirit, as well as submitting everything on time.  The Community Project of the Year award was presented to Anita and Zornitsa from Yordan Radichkov Foreign Language High School in Vidin who organized a Spring Spirit Fest at the cultural heritage site Baba Vida, which was aimed at supporting the local community from vendors and artists. The event was held at a fortress and held various workshops, a bazaar, a performance stage as well as food and drink vendors. 

Certificates of program completion were awarded and sent to 43 out of 62 students enrolled in the Student Leadership Program. 

Plans have started for the initiation of the new program, and 37 new students have been nominated to join the program with the initial training which happens in September. 

Links:

• News coverage