Our history...
Welcome! :)
You are a guest of the site "Heroes Marathon" :
https://marathonsforheroes.wixsite.com/marathonsforheroes
We are students of two specialties of the Faculty of Pedagogy at VTU "St. Cyril and Methodius ”, Veliko Tarnovo - Preschool and primary school pedagogy and Primary school pedagogy and foreign language (English), 3rd year, full-time education, and one of our teachers - Assoc. Prof. Dr. Katya Simeonova.
We present you our innovative project "Marathon for Heroes", which launched in March, 2021 with the beginning of the summer semester of students of the academic year 2020-2021. Without interruption, for 12 days we held 23 marathons with primary school students in different cities in Bulgaria. The total number of marathons in our first season 2021 is 26!
In the next academic year 2021-2022, with the beginning of its summer semester, the project activity continued in full force with the new students in the 3rd year of the same two specialties. The 2022 season is just as successful! We are very happy!
The initiative was created by our teacher in response to the call of international organizations UNICEF (IASC), UNESCO, UN, WHO to promote mental health and empower children in the pandemic situation around the world caused by the crown virus and Covid-19 disease.
Our main motto is: "Heroes are created. Being a hero means being brave enough to know what you need to do and to do it every time.
Most of us students eagerly joined teams and developed our own scenarios, based on the two IASC (Inter-Agency Standing Committee) children's books at UNICEF "My Hero is You" and "My Hero is You 2". “.
With the help of handmade dolls - reading characters, we talk to children about the importance of knowing the rules of behavior, strictly follow them, control yourself and be able to easily transform the negative emotions in life in positive. We work for the important mental health of children.
Each time the marathon for heroes ended with warm thanks from the children and their teachers and invitations for the next visit. Every time there is great excitement and sincere joy from touching the children's world!
The initiative is actually part of our training in entrepreneurship at intermediate and advanced level of the progressive model of entrepreneurial competence (EntreComp, 2016) and is integrated by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Katya Simeonova in our methodological training as future teachers of technology and entrepreneurship. Marathon training also covers some of the professional competencies of the primary school teacher:
Teaching;
Relationships with students;
Leadership;
Educational work and work in a multicultural and inclusive environment (see ORDINANCE on the state requirements for acquiring the professional qualification "teacher", effective from the academic year 2017/2018, adopted by the Council of Ministers № 289 of 07.11.2016).
Website of the book "You are my hero":
Website of the book "My hero is you 2":
The animated films developed by Stanford Medicine for the two books "My Hero is You" are in the following links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdO7MHlCkys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxgWqnQ6byU
Follow #MaratonzaHeroes to get acquainted with our activity in detail 😊
