written by Alexia Ciocheltca, Young Humanist, member of The Romanian Secular-Humanist Association
What are young humanists doing in Romania? I’m happy to share my personal experience of winning a Young Humanist grant from Humanists International last year and creating my very first project—one designed for other young people in Romania who resonate with this life philosophy we call humanism.
I’d like to start by saying that I was incredibly pleased and excited to have won this grant. It can often feel difficult, or even impossible, for young people to develop meaningful projects and initiatives for their communities. But you have to start somewhere, and for me, that meant asking myself what was lacking in my country’s educational system—beyond outdated textbooks, irrelevant information, or even religious indoctrination. More than anything, I realized that what was missing was a fundamental approach to thinking itself.
The way we are taught to think is often limited to what, when, who, and where—what happened in a particular historical period, when a revolution started, who signed a treaty, where certain people live. While these are valuable pieces of knowledge, something crucial is missing. There’s a question that can’t always be answered with a quick internet search: Why?
This question inspired my project, Reasoning Revolution – Empowering Youth Through Thought, a tribute to humanism’s commitment to reason and critical thinking. I truly believe that more and better thinking can save lives, improve the world, and make us better people. But… why?
In times of great political instability and uncertainty, both in my country and globally, it’s easy to fall prey to propaganda, manipulation, and collective brainwashing. It requires an additional effort to critically examine all sides of a specific argument, to analyze society’s state and transformation and then correctly formulate an opinion, ideally based on facts. My project consisted in a series of interactive workshops which I organized with the help of the colleagues at The Romanian Secular-Humanist Association, ASUR, and where I explored these concepts and ideas with the young participants. We focused on logical fallacies, which we have exemplified through funny and engaging posters, we talked about how to make better life decisions by thinking critically, we had debates and constructed valid arguments for our opinions together. These workshops were also held by me in a few public schools from Bucharest, where I had the opportunity to teach children and teenagers about this superpower we possess, if only we train our minds and constantly accept new challenges along the way. It’s not always easy to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism or to give up on our false beliefs, when and if they turn out to be false. It’s a commitment and it’s for sure a humanist commitment.
My experiences with the beneficiaries of this project were inspiring and pleasant and I felt proud to have been able to contribute, even just a little bit, to some people’s changed perceptions about humanism and our goals and vision. I truly believe that youth can be empowered by (critical) thought and that thinking can never do us any harm, except for breaking the comfortable ideological chains we often find ourselves stuck in. I tried my best to represent and gather young humanists in Romania for the whole period of this project and once again I am deeply grateful to Humanists International for offering me this chance.
My advice to any young humanist out there? Don’t wait for the perfect moment—start now. Start with something that ignites your passion, something that demands change. Even small steps can set big things in motion. Be realistic, but don’t underestimate the power of your ideas. Change doesn’t happen overnight, because in education, we’re not just shaping the present—we’re building the future. So, start now, start somewhere, play the long game, and play it with conviction.