International Council for Cultural Centers (I3C)

 And the Award for the most Innovative European Volunteer Initiative for 2019 goes to… Solidarity Bread!

On January 18 we played the “Build a Bread House” educational game on social entrepreneurship with 60 youngsters from Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. By using the stages of growing wheat, we discussed how we can create a Bread House in their communities and which social groups can participate in the functioning of the Bread House. The youngsters visited the Sofia Bread House and played the “Bakers Without Borders” game as a part of the project “Youth Social Integration Through Social Entrepreneurship” funded by the Erasmus+ Program and implemented by the Bulgarian Memory Foundation (Bulgaria), together with the Bulgarian-Macedonian Friendship Association (Macedonia) and the Citizen Association “Grupa liperalnih, ambicioznih i solidarnih“ (Serbia). The goal of the project is to develop entrepreneurial skills through informal education and to contribute to youth employment.

We are launching a series of children’s books written and illustrated by our founder and president, Dr. Nadezhda Savova-Grigorova, cultural anthropologist (Princeton University) and “Traveler with a Mission of the Year 2012” of the global National Geographic. The books are separate from the game Bakers without Borders, but related to it. They go under the general title of “The Adventures of NadEzhko, the hedgehog Baker without Borders”. You can learn more about the books and purchase them on the website of the Bakers without Borders game: http://thegame.bakerswithoutborders.net/books/.

We were recently awarded participation in the 8th Mont-Blanc Meetings on solidarity economy that will take place on December 6, 7, and 8, 2017 in France. The topic of the event is "Social and solidarity economy: The new efficiency." During the event we will present about the initiative of the Bread Houses Network. Zdrava Vodenicharova from the Bread Houses Network will be presenting attending the event to present us.

In September, we became a member of Hands On! International, the international association of children museums. Soon after that we attended the association's conference in the Czech Republic. The title of the conference was “The Future in Children’s Hands – Informal Education as an Instrument for Social Change.” During the conference I3C had the opportunity and pleasure to present the game “Bakers Without Borders.” One of the most faithful and supportive crumbassadors of the Bread Houses Network represented I3C at the conference and made bread with 35 participants from all over the world on the topic of tolerance. The bread workshop that our crumbassador led was part of the module presenting good practices for social inclusion and engagement.

In October, the city of Opole hosted the first International Game Pedagogy Festival in Poland, organized by the Polish Association of Pedagogues and Animators KLANZA. The event gathered teachers, trainers, facilitators and animators.

During the event, we presented the Bread Houses Network board game “Build a Bread House” and played it in three languages – Polish, English and German! Many others took the challenge to participate in the Theater of Crumbs. At the flour canvas they presented their visions about game pedagogy and shared what they see as the salt and the sugar in this approach.

A big thank you to the organizers for the great experience and for the chance to share our methods with so many people interested in our work!

Adam Majewski who is one of the latest Crumbassadors to join our Bakers without Borders community just started a great campaign which aims at raising funds to organize community building baking programs in Twin Cities, Minnesota. The program will “create a beacon of hope, help develop future leaders in social change and improvement, and ensure those most in need are receiving the basic food needs for themselves and their families”.

Adam, who is an owner and Baker of the Majestic Chef Bakery and Pastry Baker at the Wedge Co-op, intends to start three programs for social change in the Twin Cities. In the first one, he’s going to use the Theater of Crumbs method, developed by Dr. Nadezhda Savova-Grigorova, in order to organize puppet shows in which the attendees will teach each other about diversity within the community and will acknowledge the variety of their own opinions. The second program, called Let Them Eat Cake! is an initiative to support those in need with healthy food through picnics, meal events and meal deliveries. The third part of Adam’s campaign is Bakers On The Run! Adam will create a running team which will act as both a fundraising platform for events and activities. Moreover, the team will provide mentorship for future generations of food service professionals.

Monitoring and evaluation, organisational development and leadership were the focus of the second capacity building workshop for ten recipients of the 2016 Intercultural Innovation Award. Hosted by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the BMW Group, the workshop took place in Gurgaon, India from 12 February to 16 February 2017.

Participants of the workshop came from Brazil, Bulgaria, France, Germany, India, Israel, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The training sessions were designed with the aim of building their long-term impact and ongoing sustainbility so that their initiatives could be expanded and replicated in other contexts.

The first part of the event focused on leadership, organisational development and sustainbility, taught by experiential group learning, case studies and simulations. The participants were then taken through the steps to develop a monitoring plan, and how results from monitoring and evaluation could be used in making management decisions and for communications. A highlight of the workshop was seeing the work of current awardees, Routes 2 Roots and Safecity.

The I3C was represented by the project coordinator Zdrava Vodenicharova. The awarded project “Bakers without Borders – Game and Network with community bread-making events as tools for intercultural dialogue and community cohesion, across more than 20 countries on 5 continents.

The training in Gurgaon is part of the one-year support programme provided to recipients of the Intercultural Innovation Award. The first capacity building workshop took place in Munich, Germany at BMW Group Headquarters during June 2016 and focused on the areas of strategic communication and effective planning.