A national online program for supporting young people in difficult times
'Life, imagination, imagination, time. Orientation, responsibility for young people.' This is the name of the campaigns for sponsorship initiated by the YOU program. It includes articles on the emotional health of young people, about school, or self-confidence. 'You Are a Voice' is a platform that tries to support young people 18 or younger. It tries to do that by lifting their spirits, but also assuring them that they are part of a community, which is more and more needed nowadays, when social distancing has exacerbated the sense of isolation that young people have always felt.
We were told about the project by Florentina Balos, networking coordinator and initiator of the project:
"It is a project for young people in Romania, dealing with adolescent depression, something that is not talked about enough, but also about professional orientation. It includes a call-center line that had not existed until now. It has started working in September. We formed a great team of dedicated people, psychologists who council young people, and who were joined by entrepreneurs and artists who hold during this period workshops, all online, for vocational orientation, or emotional management, time management, because when you are in school, it helps to prioritize."
We asked our interlocutor what is the greatest need that young people have, from the observations of the call-center, and we found out that it is socialization, reason for which more and more young people are open to communication, both by phone and online.
"We train alongside professionals. We will have a plan that will be ready by November, when everything will be running smoothly. Right now, when it comes to young people, all our attention is focused on fighting depression. This call-center, which has already offered counseling to around 1,200 young people who called the number or wrote on WhatsApp, contacted them, and they told us what they were going through and the areas in which they could use our help."
Beyond the fact that, once on the page, we find that we can invest in the future, by donating 2 Euro to the call-center, we find lots of personal stories, one more interesting than the next. We can find out how we can change the feeling that 'a friend is better than you at what they do', that 'failure is the best thing that can happen to you', being at the basis of everything that you succeed in life at. All these life stories are meant to increase self-confidence and the ability to understand life, with everything it brings, good or not-so-good.
Florentina Balos invited us to visit them online:
"We have the website you.com.ro, or the you.youth Facebook page. When young people access the Facebook page or the website, they see directly a WhatsApp page, where they can contact us, and have a hotline they can call easily. Right now we don't have a 24 hours a day schedule, but we hope to soon have that. Right now our schedule is Monday to Friday, 10 AM to 6 PM, and on Saturdays from 9:30 AM to 3 PM. We soon hope to go round the clock."
Also here you can find information about schools around the world, and how to select programs for studying abroad or domestically, and about all that defines a teenager. Florentina Balos encourages young people to open their hearts and minds to this form of socialization, with the promise that results will not be late in coming.
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