Do you ever feel like you need to do more to give back to your community? Social Friday offers a perfect opportunity for you!
Every quarter, we join the global social initiative “Social Friday” and dedicate our Friday afternoons to supporting local organizations. This is a great way for us to get to know each other better and help those who are in need. If you’re inspired by this idea, check the initiative, and let’s join forces to reinvent Fridays!
Today we will make a recap of our previous Social Friday events, so you can get more familiar with the activity.
For our very first Social Friday activity, we decided to make a small patch of the city park more beautiful, clean the greenery and plant some flowers.
This location is just outside our office in Skopje, and we pass by it almost every day. Seeing this part of the park and riverside neglected inspired us to choose it as our first project nearly instantly.
It was spontaneously organized by the team and we had such a great time that we decided to do this every quarter!
For our second event, we gathered as a team, supplied food and ingredients, and cooked some meals for those in need.
The energy that was given to this project was immense! And it really created a change in our team spirit giving us a motivation to do more good and to give back.
For our third-social event, we collaborated with a wonderful group of people that work with kids with disabilities. Together we tried to accent the importance of involving each member of the community equally, no matter the difference between us!
We’ve spent the day with this inspiring group of people in the city ZOO, where we all learned more about the animals there. The topping of the event was the tasty pizza we shared, because who doesn’t want to end a walk with a pizza?!
In this event, we’ve decided to build some cabins for the stray dogs of Skopje. This way, the dogs will have a warm and safe place to stay during the cold winter months.
It was a great opportunity to use our handy skills and knowledge to help the animals.
It was both rewarding and inspirational, certainly will recommend it as a group activity!
For this event, we visited the SOS children’s village in Skopje and spent some time with the kids there. We played games, made crafts, and just had a lot of fun together.
In this event, we got a chance to show our support and care for the children, which was a soul-enrichment experience.
In our sixth event, we decided to meet again with our friends from the SOS children’s village in Skopje. This time around, we invited more people with us and they also got the chance to meet the kids, spend time with them, participate in fun crafty activities, and really get in touch with the challenges they face. Because the ultimate goal is for more people to get to know each other so they can help the community organizations all around us that try to make our neighbourhoods better.
For our eighth event, we organized spray painting activities and games with the seniors in our society. We’ve visited the elderly home Rezidencija Dabeski, and felt overwhelmed by the positive atmosphere and energy these people show.
This demographic group could use more attention from the youth, don’t you think?
After this amazing day, we engineers of course took the whole story a step further. With the collaboration of Acanthus Gallery, which showed great openness to participate in our Social Friday, we prepared an exhibition of the art created at our event. Imagine the reaction of the participants noticing their art project hanging on the wall of a gallery, uniquely unforgettable!
The next event was also dedicated to the elderly. In the spirit of the holidays, we visited them, played board games, created Christmas crafts and decorations, and got a chance to spread some holiday cheer among them.
It was truly the most wonderful time of the year!
For this remarkable event, Breon combined forces with Best and Borca. One is a student organization and the other is a fierce group of individuals cancer survivors who fight against this disease. When you combine them all you get a great event full of educational contributions from all parties that just make each other better!
Great energy and a reminder of why we organize Social Fridays!
Do you know that in North Macedonia, every year a gigantic number of 700.000 waste is being produced? And only for a country with 2 million citizens.
Following our ideas for a better and cleaner environment, we decided our next Social Friday to be a group clean up of the rural area of Volkovija in the Polog region of North Macedonia. We also provided cans for separating and storing waste, and we’ve assembled them in the area.
The event proceeded as a picnic and a teambuilding activity for the team, that enjoyed the beautiful green countryside.
Our second event was in collaboration with Ретвитни oброк-Retweet a meal. They are an informal citizen initiative of enthusiasts that gather every Friday to cook meals for the homeless and the socially disadvantaged.
This initiative is open to collaborating with any interested party. You should contact them if you’re planning your next Social Friday in Skopje.
The energy shared kept us excited and optimistic about social change in the weeks to come.
We ended 2019 with a new partner, The Daycare Centre for street children in Shuto Orizari, Skopje. They are an amazing group of people that can use all the help they can get!
The individuals here work with the kids after school hours and help them learn and develop, keeping them from the street and the negative environment.
For our event with them, we got to meet the children, talk with them and the staff on the topics important to them and got to the problem up close. We donated usable materials to the Centre and parted ways as a company that will also contribute to their honourable cause.
New year and a new Social Friday event!
We started where we left off, with the kids from the Daycase Centre for street kids. This time we took them bowling and had a blast.
A lot of ideas were exchanged, and the kids shared with us some of their ambitions and aspirations.
Don’t forget the people from other neighbourhoods in your city. Help as much as you can.
After a longer break than anyone could expect, with all the lockdowns and negative events, we at Breon couldn’t be happier to organize our next Social Friday!
On November 26, 2021, a date known as Black Friday, we joined organizations from around the world under the motto ‘’Stop collecting things and start collecting meaningful experiences’’.
With a positive meaningful twist, we gathered with the purpose to inspire change towards connection, togetherness and social responsibility. All this rather than the common consumeristic meaning and direction of date.
For our event, we visited the kids from the Daycare Centre in Shuto Orizari and this time spend the time with them playing board games. We used the opportunity to talk more in detail with the team there about the obstacles they have faced during the ongoing pandemic.
We had a great time spent among friends!
At our latest Social Friday event this March 25th 2022, we’ve spent the sunny afternoon at the local ZOO. It was a great opportunity to get away from our busy work lives and enjoy some time in nature with the group of extraordinary kids from the Daycare Centre for street children.
We were accompanied by a zookeeper and also used this opportunity to learn more about the animals and their habitat.
The event was finalised with a picnic under the Spring sun in the ZOO park. We are not sure who enjoyed it more, we or the children! :))
Looking through all our Social Fridays, we couldn’t help but feel a bit nostalgic. We enjoyed each of the events, learned a lot and get to help our community.
We hope that our Social Friday events have inspired you and that we can maybe join forces in reinventing Fridays to do social good.
The next Social Friday event will happen very soon, on 24.06.2022. You and your team, no matter if you are students, an NGO, or a company, are welcome to join us from Breon and people from around the world in these unique events.
References
https://breon.ch/en/social-friday/
