A record number of teachers attending the Experts’ Forum organized by Kulczyk Foundation, and the premiere of new lesson plans!

On Monday, at the Olympic Center in Warsaw there wasn’t enough room to swing a cat. Over 400 teachers and educators from Poland participated in Experts’ Forum, which was organized under the auspices of the Ombudsperson for Children. They were discussing a School with empathy with reference to the lesson plans of “I know. I feel… I help!” – a project run by Kulczyk Foundation, whose new edition’s premiere took place during the Forum. The lesson plans will soon be available to order for free from the website wiemczujepomagam.pl

- It was our second edition of the Experts’ Forum. The room was jam packed, and additionally over 1,500 people were participating in the Forum by watching a live broadcast. I’m very grateful to all of you for being here with us, and I’d like you to stay with us, as the Experts’ Forum is the very place where we’ll support teachers and educators in their work – says Marta Schmude-Olczak, the Managing Director of Kulczyk Foundation. In her opening address, Dominika Kulczyk, the President of Kulczyk Foundation, talked about the role of aid in building happiness. – Travelling all over the world with humanitarian aid I see a great number of wonderful people able to move mountains when provided with little support. Teachers educating our children serve as examples of such people, while children are often small but real heroes, from whom we can learn a lot – says Dominika Kulczyk. That’s why it’s so important for me to make sure that a school is a place in which we can talk about empathy.

At the Experts’ Forum, participants had a chance to meet great specialists, such as Dr. Kamila Jankowiak-Siuda (SWPS University), who delivered a lecture on empathy in the brain. Furthermore, Jacek Santorski and Jarek Szulski (Values_) discussed the current needs of students, and Lucyka Kicińska (Dajemy Dzieciom Siłę Foundation) explained the reason why children often don’t react even though they see that their peers are subject to violence. The special guests of the Forum included Yvonne Bezerra de Mello from Projeto Uere in Brazil, working with the impoverished children living in slums, as well as Małgorzata Domagalik, a well-known journalist and the author of first-rate interviews.

The participants of the Experts’ Forum were the first to become familiar with a new edition of lesson plans „I know. I feel… I help!”, which this time are based on the already published fairy tales “Mądre bajki z całego świata” tailored to children at the age of 6-9. – For older children, we already have two editions of lesson plans, which are centred around the selected materials from a documentary series “Domino Effect”. By means of such aid campaigns, we can collect inspirations for fairy tales that come from all over the world, and consequently prepare our “Mądre bajki…”, which we consider as starting points for further discussions with youngsters – says Marta Schmude-Olczak.

Please find more information on the website wiemczujepomagam.pl

The Honorary Patron of the Forum was the Ombudsperson for Children. The Forum’s partners were: Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, the Values_ group, Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, and the Edunews.pl portal. The media partner for the event was the “Dyrektor Szkoły” magazine.