In the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, “Youth Movement for Development of the Rural Areas in Bulgaria” (YMDRAB) proposes a project entitled “NO to Poverty - YES to Labour”.
This is a national youth initiative aiming at reduction of youth unemployment among the Roma in rural areas through their active participation in environment protection activities. The initiative will be carried out by 12 young people within Etropole Municipality. The group will cooperate with “Hristo Botev” Secondary School in Lolyan village and Etropole State Forestry (Etropole SF). The project is directly targeted at 50 Roma students from the mountain village. Nevertheless, anyone will be welcome to participate. The young people aim at raising the awareness of Roma about the specific problems and needs of the forest. The Roma will be taught practical knowledge and skills in carrying out basic forestry activities, which will help them to easily find jobs in the forestry sector once they have finished their secondary education. The concrete activities include visiting forest areas in order to become better acquainted with the mountain and forest, campaigns for gathering and cleaning forest seeds and fruits as well as planting forest seeds in the forest nurseries of Etropole SF. Other concrete activities are the growing of saplings, afforestation of eroded mountain areas and landscaping of urban areas. The total duration of the project will be eight months.
