Our mission is to enrich the process of personal development and learning, inspired by nature .

Our goal is to create a sustainable and effective training organisation and a harmonious team working with care and love.

The main activities of the organisation are youth work, non-formal education and personal development for children and youth, social integration of disadvantaged young people, Eco, Civil and HR education, employability support. We conduct training on a national and international level (Youth in Action, Erasmus + and Euro-Med IV programmes), EVS projects, children camps, training for teachers, extracurricular activities in schools.

The main objectives of NC Future Now are – Developing alternative educational programs; Environmental education for children and youths; Promoting Non-formal education; Social integration of young people with fewer opportunities; Development of Youth work in Bulgaria.

NC Future Now is member of networks CEEweb for Biodiversity, Rückenwind – Support of young people with fewer opportunities and Network for sustainable exchange Alive places.

NC “Future Now 2006” runs outdoor an educational centre “Nature school” for promoting sustainable practices and outdoor education for children and youth.

Characteristics of the place

Educational centre “Nature school” is situated in the old school building in the nearly abandoned village Gudevica, surrounded by beautiful nature, high in the Rhodopy Mountains. There are a lot of natural phenomenons around – Springs of Arda River, Uhlovica and Golubovica caves, Peak Kom and also natural reserves. Today only 18 people live in the village.

NC Future Now have made lots of efforts to reconstruct the building and to establish a non-formal education centre there. The centre is still in the process of modernisation but now we can provide good conditions for learning. We do a lot of activities for children, youth and adults there and the organisation possess full outdoor equipment for camping (tents, mates and sleeping bags) for the ones who are in an adventurous mood☺.

Accommodation is in a village house (hut-type) with a big communal sleeping room. There is also the possibility to use tents and camping equipment for free if anybody wants. In the house there are two bathrooms with hot water produced by solar panels. There is also an external bathroom (with amazing view of the sunset). The rooms and beds are equipped with bed sheets and sleeping bags. In the centre there are in total 5 toilets – two internal and 3 external.

The place is VERY RURAL AND REMOTE. So you have to be prepared to live very close to nature, in a small community very far from the city civilisation!!!! It will be perfect if you like outdoors and country life.

Food

We serve rich healthy VEGETARIAN food. It will include products from local farmers, homemade cheese, butter and milk, lots of vegetables and grains and homemade bread. The food will be prepared by a professional cook.  We also cater for any special diet and allergies regarding food.

We always strive to offer a warm welcoming to you in Rhodopi Mountains.  If you have further questions, do not hesitate to contact us athome@gudevica.org .

The Educational centre “Nature school” is situated deep in the mountains next to the Greek border in a sparsely populated region. There is NO PERMANENT WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS in the centre. Also not all cell phone companies have network coverage there.  In case of urgent need there are possibilities to use wireless internet modem with slow speed and capacity (suitable for e-mail).

The Educational centre “Nature school” is in Gudevica village, Smolyan district, Bulgaria.

The main destination is Sofia. You can reach Sofia by plane (preferably before noon). If somebody decides to arrive earlier you will need accommodation (finding cheap hostel and helping with transportation).

Despite everything, however, “Nature School” conditions are very basic. We live in an environment with limited resources aiming to protect, save and share them. We prefer to sleep in tents or under the stars and that is what we teach our children. Hot water in the centre is provided by solar panels. We use biodegradable cleaning products in the kitchen and try to stick to natural materials in our activities.

Hello,

My name is Nikola and I come from Liptovský Mikuláš, a small city in the north of Slovakia. As a student of a Master Programme in European Studies and International Relations I have the opportunity to work as an intern for an organization for half a year, and that’s what brought me to Momentum World.

After submitting my application to Momentum World, I was more than happy to find out I was accepted as a projects intern. Full of energy and excitement, I came to the office on 1^st of September and that was the day when my adventure started.

And what will my adventure be like? As a projects intern it is my responsibility to support the Momentum team in project and network development, administration and communications.

My internship consists of four parts. The first part concentrates on the European Voluntary Service administration and communication. The second part is to help to create and maintain the Europeers network, a very exciting project which gathers young volunteers with experience of Erasmus+ projects. The third part includes general project support to the Momentum World team in the UK as well as overseas. And the fourth part focuses on general office support and administration, which is required in every organisation.

I believe this internship will enhance my life, open doors to a profesional world and increase my employability.

I will write again to update you on my journey…

Hello,

Something about me:

I am Anja, I am 18 years old and I come from Germany – Bavaria. Normally I am a trainee to become an industrial clerk in one year. Once a week I visit a vocational school. In December last year my teacher told me about the Erasmus+ program in London. I wrote an application and in May 2015 I got the good news that I can go to London for four weeks.

The trip to London was the first time ever for me to visit England. I went to England to do an internship with Momentum World from 22.06.2015 till 17.07.2015.

Something about my internship:

In the first two weeks I’ve been in the office for administration work. I met Andrew and Sarah in the office in London. My tasks were general administration, including data entry and searching for youth organisations in Germany and for potential partner organisations in the whole Europe.

In the third week Momentum World gave me the chance to join them to a project in the North of England, in Yorkshire. Andrew and I arrived on Saturday the 4th of July at the High Melton College in Doncaster. I met Trevor, Paul and Amy the second part of Momentum World. The first impression was very positive. On Saturday and Sunday I was responsible with Amy, Paul and Ellie (Volunteer from England) for the Arrivals. To get them the keys and show the accommodation. There were people from different countries. Represented were Greece, Italy, Slovakia, Finland and Austria.

On Sunday started the project “Partners for Inclusion”. My tasks were to help the whole team if they needed me. The group made a jigsaw about inclusion and after that they discussed about it. In the evening there was a Intercultural evening, each country brought something typical to eat or to drink.

On Monday the task for the group was to think about inclusion in there life, work and the country. They made a short film about it. Ellie and I were running the whole time to help the groups and to give them the next tasks. In the afternoon we visit in Doncaster a College for Deaf pupils. It was really interesting to hear how the Deaf pupils learn to communicate with other people.

On Tuesday there were two groups and each group visit a school. The Hilltop or Kelford School. My job was to stay at High Melton College and to welcome the incoming people for the second project “S-Factor 2015”.

On Wednesday Paul, Amy, Ellie, Ryan (Another Volunteer) and I went to a church where we were preparing everything for working with children they are disabled. It was a great day. The children painted and danced a lot to music and just had fun. They are so creative and full of positive power. It was a new experience for me, but I will never forget it.

On Thursday the Momentum Team went to the Magna Centre to put film and sound stuff for the S-factor evening on the right place. The pupils from the Hilltop and Kelford school arrived in the afternoon to work on the decoration and the Trays for the evening. I was also included in working with the children with special needs. The S-factor began at 7 pm. The pupils were brilliant. It was amazing to see the children singing and dancing on the stage. They all gave the best they could do and you could feel the emotions from the pupils and the audience too. It was a long, but great day for me.

On Friday it was just a review day. To think about the last week and to think about the inclusion future in the own country.

In the last week I went back to office in London to my administration work. At this point I want to thank the whole momentum team for the last four weeks , where I gained much experience and where I developed my personality.

As the show gradually approaches tonight preparations are underway ready for a super show! We have so many different things to offer you; there are fantastic food stalls, excellent entertainment, all while it is being filmed, so you can take home a DVD so the fun never stops.

Everyone has come together, not just from all over England, but all over the world, we have international friends from Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia,Austria, Finland, Germany and Italy to create an unforgettable show.

Each year S Factor seems to get better and better, with this year being no exception. The posters personally designed from students from schools all over Rotherham show how one show can pull a community of different schools with a variety of abilities together to pull off an spectacular event.

Students from both Hilltop and Kelford have been working on their performances in order to put you on an incredible show.

The expert jury came in at 10.00. We had some refreshment and traditional welcome bread »pogača« prepared for them.  Then we played S-Factor promo film (the longer one) to them, to get the taste of the original S-Factor. After that we introduced the S-Factor into Eurovision project and explained the aim of today’s event and the rules of voting.

And the event began. In the audience of around 100 people there were all of the students and teachers from our school, some of their parents, foreign volunteers from youth centre Črnomelj and their Slovenian volunteers and co-workers, attenders of Care and working centre for people with special needs Črnomelj, some high school teachers and retired teachers from our school.

The expert jury consisted of:  the chairman of the one of the biggest Slovenian insurance companies, the mayor of municipality Črnomelj, famous local musician, the headmaster of  the High school Črnomelj in which we hold the voting event,  chairman of Youth center Črnomelj which introduced us to the S-Factor project, famous local TV journalist, a local photographer and printer, a local film maker and two parents of our pupils. The second panel was made out  6 of our students, 2 high school students and 2 attenders of local care and working centre for people with special needs. We began with S-Factor promo film (short one), short greeting speech of school headmaster and short interview with Vlasta and Ajda about first part of the project.

After that we had a chat over Skype, first with Paul and then with Nicos and Greek audience and then with Simon at Belvue school. Then the projection of all the videos began. Each participating country was introduced also with a drawing that characterises the country, made by our student during the projection.

We have to say that the biggest applause got our two films, shown at the end of projection. All the judges agreed those two were their favourites and regretted not to be able to vote for them… And the main actor Izi exploited the moment, jumped onto the stage, kissed the event leader in gentleman way and took opportunity to take some pictures with the girls on the stage. He knows how to make the show!

During collection of the results our guest leader Erika, famous local cant author, sang some songs for the audience.Then we announced the results. We were very surprised how the pupil’s selection of the best films differs from those of the expert jury.After that we called Simon in England to share the results. We were excited to hear that our film Bass got the most voices from their expert jury and that our second film Happy school was chosen the second best from their students. You can see the excitement of our audience on some photos.

We also called Greece. They didn’t have the results by the time, but we could share ours and told them their film was chosen the best from our expert jury. We shared the excitement of their audience when they heard the results. The judges shared some thoughts about films and the whole event with the audience and they were all very positive and supportive.  They were positively surprised about the quality of the films and we all got a lot of compliments. The journalist from local TV offered to play our videos on their TV if we get to the finals.

We were ready to end the event. Our students did great, considering the event lasted almost two hours – little longer than expected (for the judges even half an hour longer). But no one complained about it. The whole event was assessed very good by the other guests too. After the show the headmaster of the High school stayed around, excited about possibilities of future cooperation with our school and sincerely grateful that we’ve chosen their hall to hold the event in.

We took a lot of pictures during the event and recorded final thoughts of members of the juries.The whole event was a big success and at the end there was a big relief that everything went well, especially the technical part.

We cannot wait to share all that with the entire group in July! See you soon!!!