On June 23 we saw the results of the teams' work from the hackathon "Beyond Borders: Breaking Stereotypes, Building Bridges", funded by UNHCR Bulgaria and organized by the Sofia Development Association.
The teams that won the first four places in the competition presented the progress of their projects. A few weeks ago, they shared their ideas with the jury, which evaluated their projects and awarded each team a place in the competition and a cash prize to carry out their project.
Today "Wizards for a Better World", "Pupe6", "Fight Club EG" and "Citizens for a United World" gathered again at SofiaLab and shared with the jury and the other participants their progress in implementing their projects.
Today's event started with a public discussion with Bistra Ivanova from Multi Kulti Collective on topics related to hate speech and public attitudes towards refugees and migrants. She told the attendees about the activities of the organization, various statistics related to refugees and migrants in Bulgaria and Europe, the integration of third-country nationals as a national competence, etc.
First to present the progress of their project was the team "Citizens for a United World", who in the last few weeks have managed to establish partnerships with numerous organizations and companies, including Arms Wide Open, whose office the team visited to meet with refugee children.
The team said that they have also prepared an exhibition showing the lives of those people we define as refugees and migrants.
Second were team Pupe6 with their Connectify app project, who showed the progress of the website they are creating as well as the informational materials they’ve prepared as part of the project.
Team Fight Club EG presented the “Behind the Curtain” project and the interviews they have carried out with refugees and migrants that are translated into several different languages. They also talked about the celebration of World Refugee Day and their progress in developing a website and social network profiles of the initiative.
Last to present their project were the “Wizards for a Better World” team from 37. Raina Knyaginya Secondary School, who talked about the school drawing competition titled "One Story - Many Paths", as well as the short film they made together with students, teachers and refugee children.
Voting followed, where the audience had the opportunity to choose their favourite team to win a special prize. Out of 266 people who voted, 53% supported the “Citizens of One World” team, who won the People's Choice Award of £1000.
All the teams are continuing their work on their campaigns.
The hackathon "Beyond Borders: Breaking Stereotypes, Building Bridges" was funded by UNHCR Bulgaria and organized by Sofia Development Association under the "Support for Integration of Refugees in Sofia” project.
