As the name of our organization says - we have taken the Initiative!
In order not to remain a passive observer and considering language integration as one of the key steps towards social integration, we launched Croatian language courses for refugees.
The initiative came in response to inquiries about the course of Croatian refugees from many refugees from Ukraine, but also from other NGOs working with refugees. Although the course is currently attended only by refugees from Ukraine, it is open to all third-country nationals who can to register at: dzenana@inicijativa.biz.
We are proud that our volunteers have been working with two groups of refugees for the second week in a row, who found themselves in an unenviable situation in Croatia. With our mission of including vulnerable groups in non-formal education, we are happy to have the opportunity to help with this kind of support in integration.
Croatian as a second language courses are held twice a week, and classes are currently taught by four volunteers, but we are happy that applications for volunteering are still arriving. This is showing us that there is empathy everywhere we look, i.e. that citizens are willing to volunteer and set aside time for those who are in dire need of help at this time. Our teacher volunteers are trained in the Callan method.
They are native Croatian speakers using only their native language in teaching. This method, along with the Croatian curriculum, facilitates teaching of groups in which participants do not speak the same common language, which makes learning the target language (in this case Croatian) faster and more efficient. Since we wanted to provide this opportunity to refugees from all areas of the Republic of Croatia, we organized our classes in an online format.
For several years now, the initiative has been actively involved in the integration of refugees from the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and now Ukraine. We hope that in the future we will continue our work in the direction of successful social integration of all those who, regardless of which country they come from, find their way in our local community.