Almost a thousand young people from all over the Czech Republic received the Duke of Edinburgh International Award, DOFE for short, on 17 and 18 March at Prague Crossroads. Participants came to Prague from the capital, Central Bohemia, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Kralove, Pardubice and South Bohemia. The graduates of the programme were also congratulated on the spot by the patrons of DOFE in the Czech Republic, including moderator Lejla Abbasová, state award winner Lucie Hyblerová and moderator Viktoria Seifert. The programme also included a festival of opportunities for the further development of young people, where organisations such as Thanks that we can!, Nekrachni, Fencing to Schools, Wise Network and the Záchranka app presented their activities.
The non-formal education programme is designed for young people aged 13 to 24 and has been running in the Czech Republic since 1995. The awards were presented to young people who had completed the Bronze and Silver levels of the programme, i.e. who had been engaged for at least six and twelve months, respectively, in activities of their own choosing in the areas of exercise, skills development and volunteering. They have also all completed a team expedition. „DOFE is unique in that it holds young people personally accountable for what and how they learn. DOFE is a framework that they can use to give regularity and consistency to their activities, to their development,“ says Gabriela Drastichová, Director of the Czech office of the International Prize.
In the Czech Republic, a total of 9,000 young people from primary and secondary schools, sports clubs, children and youth homes and children's homes were involved in the programme last year. Together, they worked 85,000 hours of volunteering and devoted 122,000 hours to exercise. There are currently more than 420 DOFE centres in the Czech Republic - schools and other youth organisations - where more than 1,000 volunteers, as the participants of the programme call themselves, are accompanied by more than 1,000 volunteers. 600 leaders. “The internationally recognised certificate is important not only because it physically proves the success of the graduate of the programme - I did it - but it is also a verification of the results of non-formal learning, which should be of interest to schools in admissions and employers,” adds Gabriela Drastichová.
Director of DOFE Gabriela Drastichová
For example, Tomáš Hemelík completed the silver level at the Dr. Emil Holub Gymnasium. „I decided to join DOFE to get to know myself better, to find out what is one of my strengths and what is not. I have learned that there is nothing that I can't do in time. Thanks to DOFE I found out what I enjoy and what I would like to do in the future. I pushed my boundaries and started looking for my limits,” he said, evaluating his participation in the program. As part of DOFE, he took up cycling, worked with wood, made things like an insect house and volunteered to manage his DOFE centre's instagram account. He went on an expedition with his team to Pálava.
Tomas Hemelík (top row, second from the right) received his silver DOFE badge.
24 people also received their awards at the Prague Crossroads Graduateů of the programme, who do their DOFE in the organization “YES, YES”, which focuses on supporting children and young people from children's homes and socially vulnerable families. „The DOFE programme will give these children confidence, they will meet new people, gain experience and forget where they come from for a while. DOFE always takes them a little further,“ says Ludmila Zachová, the head of the centre.
The Duke of Edinburgh's International Prize programme was founded by Prince Philip in 1956 to encourage the self-development of young people from all backgrounds. In the Czech Republic, the programme in 1995 brought the golf champIon Luisa Abrahams.
