Small skills build lasting change.

Help us build practical learning programmes for children in rural Romania

Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not.

Across rural Romania, many children grow up surrounded by extraordinary resources: living traditions, local knowledge, cultural heritage, close-knit communities and landscapes filled with possibility.

What they often lack is access.

Access to practical education.

Access to mentors.

Access to experiences that help them discover what they are capable of.

Access to the skills that can turn curiosity into confidence, and confidence into opportunity.

We want to help change that.

We are raising €3,000 to take the next step in developing a series of micro-skills learning programmes for children and young people in rural communities across Brașov, Cluj and the Sighișoara area.

These will be accessible, practical educational experiences built around the places children come from, not around the idea that they must leave those places behind in order to succeed.

We are not starting from zero!

Over the years, we have helped create libraries for children in several Romanian villages, bringing books and learning opportunities closer to communities where access to educational resources remains limited.

Together with GEYC, we also organised two Changemakers Leadership Bootcamps in Bran, creating a space where young people could learn, collaborate, take initiative and begin seeing themselves as active contributors to their communities.

We have seen what happens when young people are given the right environment.

A book can awaken a question.

A workshop can reveal an ability.

A mentor can change the way a child imagines the future.

But isolated interventions are not enough. We now want to transform this experience into a more consistent and replicable educational programme, one that can travel from one rural community to another.

What are micro-skills?

Micro-skills are focused, practical abilities that can be learned through short, engaging and applied experiences.

They can help children and young people better understand their surroundings, communicate their ideas, work with others, solve problems and recognise the value of their own cultural and community heritage.

Our aim is to develop learning experiences that connect areas such as:

• Creativity and storytelling

• Communication and collaboration

• Leadership and community participation

• Cultural and gastronomic heritage

• Hospitality and local identity

• Entrepreneurship and initiative

• Research, observation and critical thinking

The programme will be adapted to the age, needs and realities of each participating community. It will not be about delivering abstract lessons from the outside. It will begin with what already exists locally: people, stories, traditions, knowledge and potential.

From research to real-world learning

We are researchers as well as community practitioners.

In September 2024, we participated in an international study mission in Rome focused on food security and cultural heritage, organised by the EastWest Institute in partnership with the International Heritage Institute.

One of its main outcomes was an academic research paper exploring Romanian food cultural heritage, its future development and the strategic directions that could strengthen Romania’s gastronomic identity.

The paper was included in the volume Heritage and Human Rights Perspectives through Past, Present and Future, launched during the Symposium on Cultural Heritage organised by the University of Strathclyde and the Heritage International Institute.

For us, publication was never the final destination.

We brought the knowledge home and shared it through workshops, consultancy sessions and practical exchanges with organisations, tourism operators, gastronomy professionals and community partners.

That experience proved something essential: international research becomes truly valuable only when it is translated into tools that people can actually use.

Why Kos is part of this journey

Our next research milestone is the International Gastronomy Tourism Lab in Kos, Greece, organised by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in partnership with the Greek government.

Kos is not the destination of this campaign. Rural Romania is.

The Lab will give us access to international researchers, practitioners and tested approaches at the intersection of gastronomy, tourism, cultural heritage and local development.

We will use that knowledge to strengthen the micro-skills curriculum, identify practices that can be meaningfully adapted to Romanian communities and develop more relevant educational resources for the children and young people we want to reach.

The journey may take us to Kos, but everything we learn there will be brought back home.

What your contribution will make possible

We are raising €3,000 to support this next research and programme-development stage.

The funds will help make our participation in the International Gastronomy Tourism Lab possible and allow us to transform the knowledge gathered there into practical educational resources for rural Romania.

This is one step in a much larger commitment:

- Developing the micro-skills curriculum

- Creating accessible educational resources

- Building partnerships with schools, organisations and local communities

- Organising workshops in rural areas across Brașov, Cluj and Sighișoara

- Connecting children with mentors, researchers and practitioners

- Documenting the process and sharing what we learn openly

Supporters will be able to follow the journey online—from the research stage to the development of the curriculum and its future application in local communities.

We want you to see not only where your contribution goes, but what it helps set in motion.

How you can help

You can become part of this mission by:

Contributing through this page

Sharing the campaign with your friends and community

Connecting us with schools, educators, organisations or rural communities

Supporting future workshops and educational activities

Helping us identify mentors, researchers and practitioners who can contribute to the programme

Every contribution matters.

Because this is not simply about funding participation in an international programme.

It is about ensuring that valuable knowledge does not remain inside conference rooms, academic papers or professional networks.

It is about bringing that knowledge into village libraries, classrooms and community spaces.

It is about giving children practical skills, meaningful encounters and the confidence to understand that where they come from can be a source of strength—not a limitation.

We have already built libraries.

We have already created spaces for young changemakers.

We have already transformed research into shared knowledge.

Now we want to build the next chapter: a learning programme that helps children in rural Romania discover what they know, what they can learn and what they can become.

Help us bring these opportunities closer to them.

Small skills can open big futures.