OBESSU Study Visit to Bulgaria
From 17th of 22nd of October OBESSU organised a study visit to the National School Students Union of Bulgaria (НУС – Национален Ученически Съвет). We, Daniele Di Mitri as an OBESSU Board Member, Robert O’ Donnell, Irish School Student Unions (ISSU) International Officer and Larissa Nenning, International Officer from Aktion kritischer Schüler_innen (AKS) had the pleasure to be the taskforce of this trip. We were going to be part of the national Training of National Student Union (NSU) of Bulgaria with the title “Leadership is the key”, which gathered school student activists from all over Bulgaria in the Red Cross Training Centre located near Sofia. The aim of this study visit was to strengthen the connection between OBESSU and NSU, to introduce OBESSU and its functions, aims and topics to the Bulgarian school students and to find out how OBESSU could support them in their future.
On the first day of the training, 18th of October, it already seemed to become a great weekend. All the school students arrived and we were impressed by how many activists came from different provinces to be part of this event. They had a really full time schedule for the whole weekend, where, beside our three two-hour workshop sessions, a lot of different discussions, speeches from guest speakers, games and other exciting activities were planned. In the afternoon we had our first workshop on school students rights, where we first introduced OBESSU and then went on with discussion on school student rights, school student councils and talked with them about their problems they were having in Bulgaria concerning these topics. We were told that they do not have school student councils in every school, but they are strongly working on this issue.
The next day we had our next session called “Citizens of society” which was about active citizenship and participation. During this session we had a very heated “American debate” on different questions about the connection of school and society, if young people at the age of 16 should be able to vote, about democracy, if leadership is the most important thing and a lot more. We did this discussion in Bulgarian after we found out that this way the people could express themselves a lot better what really worked.
In the evening they tried to teach us some Bulgarian traditional dances, which was quite unsuccessful, but really entertaining.
On Sunday we had our last workshop on social inclusion with the title of the new OBESSU campaign “Education, we have a problem!”. In these two hours we presented the campaign to them and then focused on social exclusion in the Bulgarian school system. By forming different working groups they tried to find solutions for these problems and think about activities the school student union could do to put a light on social inclusion. In a very colourful and creative exhibition they finally presented their solutions and ideas.
This day the training weekend had already come to an end. But for us, the study visit was not yet over.
On Monday morning there was a round table planned with some school student activists, university students, rectors and representatives of the teachers union about school students’ rights. This event was also very interesting and gave even more space to debate about the ideas and positions of the Bulgarian school students union and strengthened their connection to the teachers union, which we think is great. In the evening we also had the opportunity to visit a big school in Sofia, what gave us even more insight to the Bulgarian school system.
After all we had five very exciting days in Sofia at this very well organised event. We have seen a lot of very motivated school students activists dedicated to their idea of changing the Bulgarian school student system who were also very interested in OBESSU. The Bulgarian School Student Union has a lot of potential and we wish them the best for their future and hope that they keep working like this! Thank you for having welcomed us in such a friendly and warm way!
More pictures of the study visit on our Facebook-page.
Written by Larissa Nenning and Rob O’ Donnell
