🌙 A Week in Varna That Changed How We Teach Rest

🌍 Why we gathered

Sleep is a learning issue. That is the simple, evidence-backed conviction behind SereniSleep, our Erasmus+ KA210 adult education partnership between MOGA ZNAM TVORIA (Bulgaria), ABARKA ONGD (Spain) and Creative Station (Serbia).

Our own field research told us why this week mattered: stress and anxiety is the number-one sleep barrier in adult education — observed by 80% of the educators we surveyed and reported by more than half of learners across Bulgaria, Spain and Serbia. Yet a striking awareness gap remains between how much sleep shapes learning and how little it is talked about in the classroom.

So from 25 to 31 August 2026, nine adult educators from our three partner organisations came together in Varna, hosted by our coordinator MOGA ZNAM TVORIA, for five intense days of training, exchange and connection.

💡 What happened, day by day
Foundations. The week opened with the essentials: what sleep hygiene really is (and isn't), the SereniSleep Method, and why rest belongs on every adult educator's agenda.
Realities & behaviour. Day two dug into the national findings from our State of the Art research and tackled the hardest topic head-on — stress, mental health and insomnia — before turning theory into practice with evening-routine techniques participants tried live.
Pedagogy & adaptation. Day three belonged to the educators: the five-step pedagogical cycle, inclusive facilitation, and a peer micro-teaching workshop where every participant delivered their own five-minute session.
Inclusion, platform & certification. Day four brought the inclusion checklist, a live walkthrough of our new Online Training Platform, the final evaluations — and a closing ceremony where every participant received their certificate.
Culture & connection. The week closed the Bulgarian way: the Roman Thermae, the Archaeological Museum, the Sea Garden and Varna's waterfront, shared between new friends from three corners of Europe.

Across four training days, participants completed 21 hours of hands-on sessions — every module built to be delivered with zero equipment and zero cost, exactly as they will use it with their own learners.

🙏 Thank you

A heartfelt thank you to MOGA ZNAM TVORIA for a welcome that made nine travellers feel at home from the first dinner to the last transfer — and for the certificates and recognition that closed the week with such warmth.

And thank you to Creative Station for the quality of their inputs throughout the training and, above all, for their trust. Partnerships are built on exactly that.

🚀 What comes next

The Varna week is not an ending — it is ignition:

The nine certified educators now bring sleep education to their own learners in Bulgaria, Spain and Serbia.
Our Online Training Platform opens the full programme — ten learner modules and the Educator Companion — to anyone, anywhere.
And the story continues: our follow-up project E-Legacy is already on track and moves forward in March 2027 together with members of the ESIRA network, carrying what we built in SereniSleep to a wider European community.

Curious about sleep education for your organisation or your learners? Follow SereniSleep and get in touch — the journey is just beginning.

SereniSleep (2025-1-BG01-KA210-ADU-000352792) is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.