Support Ukrainian Blue Cross work & refugees

Dear supporters,

Your contributions have made a great difference during the past years. In Poland and Romania, our local Blue Cross organizations have been able to support Ukrainian refugee families and youth in their new circumstances, far away from home. In order to prevent social exclusion of people who face trauma, Blue Crosses have arranged activities including individual support and youth activities. At the community level, we have facilitated discussions with local communities, and with summer camps, we have helped the youth to visit various local services and places to familiarize themselves with their new surroundings.

In addition to all this, prevention needs advocacy work to tackle any structures that may cause somebody to be left behind. IBC has identified a need to concentrate on supporting refugee youth and their local peers at schools through life skills education.

As a result of generous funding from GlobalGiving, we will now continue supporting the youth through school-based programs, after school clubs, parents' evenings, and community action. We have been busy setting everything up and training the facilitators in life skills facilitation skills. We believe that life skills will make a big difference for youth to make  good and heathy choices in their life. Life Skills protect from alcohol and other drug use, mental health problems and from social exclusion.

In the field of education, IBC promotes the personal and social development of young people. The WHO has identified 10 core Life Skills as essential for healthy adolescent development. These contribute to preventing risk behaviours for non communicable diseases such as alcohol and other drug use, by enabling young people to translate knowledge, atti-tudes, and values into concrete actionable abilities. By internalizing these Life Skills as core competencies, young people improve their self-efficacy, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Consequently, they are more likely to adopt and sustain a healthy lifestyle into adulthood. In our project countries trained Life Skills trainers conduct sessions during regular school lessons. These are complemented by extracurricular activities such as sports, art, music, debates, and theatre. The sessions emphasise the development of Life Skills, believing that the preventative behaviour change will translate to a wide range of behaviours. Discussion topics then deepen knowledge of specific aspects such as addiction, HIV, discrimination, violence, and gender issues in line with the project objectives.

We look forward to sharing more in months to come! Thank you for your support!