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BEING HAPPY, SELF CONFIDENT, SOCIAL, STRUCTURED AND COMMUNICATIVE ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT LIFE SKILLS TO LEARN

Underprivileged children and youth of war need to recover themselves from the traumas and the damages caused by war and at the same time develop their personal and social skills to progress into a bright future. The formal school system alone can’t satisfy these basic needs.

Education in our pedagogy basically has two main focuses, one the actual subject s such as photography and journalism and the other is the personal and social skills obtained during the workshops.

 

Back to School

A SECOND CHANCE THAT ALL CHILDREN DESERVE

War and hardships of turbulent conditions especially in the refugee camps effect many of the fundamental necessities, priorities and even values. Very often both children, parents and even community leaders see no necessity, importance or even need for children to attend schools. Many of these children are trapped in illegal child labor markets or become street working kids, collecting garbage and in different ways lose their resources and potentials for growth. This may solve some of the immediate needs of the families but also starts a viscous circle of poverty and criminality for the entire society.

Once a street-working war victim little girl put a school uniform she reviews herself, her world and her life. This is a magical moment, a chance all children deserve to have and decide their future. Providing those moments, and then supporting children to choose and facilitating to sustain their choices is the most important present we can give to the children. MMCC is proud to be facilitating these choices for many children of IDP camps and supporting them to go back to schools.

Photography

A TOOL FOR VISUAL STORY TELLING, AND SELF ORIENTATION

 

A story told primarily through the use of visual media is first of all the best tool to make children observe themselves better. The first step of any progress in personal and social development is opening the eyes and observe who you really are from different angels and with different lights and frames. For many broken children, a photo taken and seen alone help them understand themselves better and literally have a “picture” of who they are in their hand, a good place to start.

Without any doubt the skill alone is a great treasure, but the process also include both social and personal develpment as an integrated part of the training.

Radio Production

FROM SELF-AWARENESS TO CHANGING THE WORLD

Who can better talk for children then the children themselves?

All they need is just a bit of simplified techniques and some introductions. There is a very short distance between being a war victim to a hero advocating for children and youth. Making radio studios, interviewing officials and editing radio programs are actually easier and more fun without adults and their complicated restrictive working styles.

International Labor Organization, WarChild, UNIFEM and Canadian Government have been among the sponsors of our different radio productions and workshops.

Journalism

Advocacy by and for children

Adult journalists often don’t even know what to ask when the subject is related to children as they don’t know what matters for children. We have simplified journalism and facilitated production of radio, video, photo and text (online and off line) for the children and the youth.

There are 4 main reason behind our journalism activities:

  • To develop personal and social skills of children and youth.
  • To introduce and improve some new technical skills for children and youth.
  • To advocate for children by children and produce educational, cultural, informative material for them.
  • To bring the attention of the adults from officials to parents and general public to both capacities and needs of the children and youth.

Speech

Nurturing & cultivating an articulated strong voice for the voiceless

The hardships of wars and conflicts very often make individuals as well as communities and groups such as children and youth in general lose their voices. The victims very often suffer for ages and this also has many social consequences. Not to be heard and not to be considered and gradually becoming eliminated and excluded as individuals and as communities are among these consequences. From being a shy traumatized excluded little girl to for example becoming an articulated, self-confident activist wisely arguing and strongly demanding and advocating for children rights is not a long way through our pedagogy. It is simply all about finding the proper and joyful tools and instructions to develop the personal and social skills. Stage, manuscript, humor, logic, make-up, sound system, spotlights, costumes, performing venues, live audience all the way to TV stations and National Parliament, and interviewing ministers are among our tools for that.

Painting

one of the best tools for expressing what is difficult to say

We always paint in big groups of children and very often on the same mega wall or canvas to produce a collective art. Following are some of the main functions of our paintings:

  • Beautification of children surrounding (mainly schools) and making it a perfect place for children.
  • A tool for socialization of children by collectively participating in the paintings (murals).
  • Illustration of different subjects and make knowledge and information visible, fun and easy to understand.
  • Skill development which regardless of what use it would have it develops the participants.
  • Trauma Therapy by simply letting children take over their own healing process and freely express themselves in a very safe and inspiring environment (very often the results are very astonishing)