C4C

Springboard to Life

The Chance 4 Children (C4C) Springboard to Life Program (STL) asserts that:

Every Child Has the Right to an Education!

It is the express aim of the Chance 4 Children STL initiative, to teach supplemental vocational skills to disabled and institutionalized children as a springboard to a successful adult life and problem-free integration into society. Considering the present high failure rate amongst young adults leaving institutions, with some of them ending up in conflict with the law, STL aims to substantially improve the chances of success in professional life for the participating young people, by offering them supplemental education and vocational extracurricular courses to find their bearings and place in life. The topics currently include:

1. Computer knowledge
2. English language skills
3. Baking
4. Household science, essential life skills
5. Music/Guitar lessons
6. Vocational courses, preparation for professional life
7. Hair-styling training, nail art
8. Sewing
9. Ceramic workshop
10. Integration and socialization programs
11. Coaching

C4C’s roving team of teachers is busy visiting rural institutions on a regular basis, teaching the participants in lively forums once or twice a week. Weekend courses are on the drawing board as well, pending sufficient funding. The resonance to the program has been excellent and encouraging. Says Ms. Kohoutova, director of the Zatec orphanage: “Our children really enjoy learning how to bake and they eagerly look forward to the next week when their teacher comes again.”

It is C4C’s long-term goal to enable as many children as possible in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe to benefit from the program and to help elevate the standard of education for institutionalized children, paving the way for the participating youth to truly have a chance in life.

To help extend the program’s reach, with a special focus on Computer Literacy Classes, C4C is planning to launch the Mobile Computer Literacy Lab (MCLL), a roving computer classroom. With the concept already endorsed by the Ministry of Informatics, the Chance 4 Children team is currently in negotiations with several high profile sponsors interested in financially realizing this potentially far reaching program.