Justice and Human Rights Bulgaria Project #28303

Enrich the quality of life in Bulgarian villages

by Ideas Factory Association

Enrich the quality of life in Bulgarian villages

Project Report | Dec 3, 2024
Let's make Baba Residence happen in 2025 !

By Yoana Stoyanova | Project Leader

Mariya & baba Mirtoka in Yasen

Dear Baba supporer and village-lover,

DECEMBER 3 (today) is a crucal date for our efforts to make Baba Residence happen again in 2025! Throughout the whole day, every little and big support can make Baba's Residence come true in 2025! Every single donation, made at our project page here, will be multipliied by GlobalGiving!

Why keep pushing the realization of Baba Residence every year even though it's so hard to sustain it financially? To continue maintain and expand the pure-hearted friendships between young urban people and elderly in villages, building a better future for villages in Bulgaria!
When we act and feel as one (rural-urban) community, we are also able to find solutions to many local problems and create new ideas, events and useful initiatives.

In this 2025 we will keep on building upon our efforts in villages in the Northwest of Bulgaria!

Just some of the examples how this intergenrational interaction over the years looks like:
residencies, volunteer actions and numerous cultural events in 20 villages
6 renovations of creative spaces in 6 Northwest villages
over 118 residents who have gone through the programme and contributed and contributed to cultural initiatives in the villages
1 Baba's Residency handbook that can support you in implementing a creative residency in your village/neighbourhood
growth and maintenance of the Babas Knitting Clan, a small social enterprise for woollen handicraft (with our iconic socks), supporting over 40 elderly women from villages

You've been with us for enough time now to know some of the things we have accomplished with the Residence, but let us take you to a short summarizing journey here:
BABA RESIDENCE llustrated map with some of what we have achieved by 2023
BABA RESIDENCE handbook, available to all
VIDEO about the renovated creative spaces in 6 villages
OUR 2023

And many, many, many more shared experiences, precious stories, photos, videos and documentaries... Please, be with us in keep on growing this community and share rural-urban reality, making the center-periphery disparaties and injustices in Bulgaria smaller and smaller - in the long-long run!

DONATE TODAY or/ and SHARE WITH AT LEAST 3 PEOPLE OUR CAMPAIGN!

THANK YOU, dear Baba supporter

and let this month be truly meaningful and warm for you and your loved ones,

Yoana and the Ideas Factory Team!

Our warm hosts from Deleyna village

Residents & local singing group in Yasen

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Aug 22, 2024
Baba Residence 2024 in 3 Wallachian villages!

By Yoana Stoyanova | Project Leader

Koshava from above

Hey, dearest Baba supporter!

How has you August been going? Work, really? We are noticing that despite the efforts of trying to embrace the rhythm of summer more devotedly, August very often happens to be one of our busiest months.

Anyway! We join today with 2 important news:

- - - Our Residency 2024 is just about to begin! It will again be in the Northwest and along the r. Danube from August 30th to September 9th.

We are venturing into the "quiet waters" of local culture and Wallachian treasures in the villages of Deleyna, Yasen and Koshava. This time our Residency has a new format and goal - creating a concept of cultural products/experiences/adventures led by local people. We want them to be permanently creative and beneficial for the local community, so the working title of their essence is co-creative tourism.

Here, here and here you can meet the 17th (yep!) newly chosen residents with so many different backgrounds and professional whirlwinds.

What is the connection between the 3 villages? The borderness, the Wallchian vernacular and treasures, the amazing funeral rites, the dance folklore, the honourable role of water (the Danube for Koshava and Yasen and the fountains for the village of Deleya). The remaining undiscovered sources of opportunities and points of contact between the three villages will be explored together with the selected residents. Also here (in Bulgarian) you can read a bit more about one of our latest expeditions to the villages.

- - - We had finally finished the first shareable version of our Baba Residence handbook (both English and Bulgarian) - a guide for rural organizers who want to boost the cultural life and access to culture of their village (or neighbourhood even).

Please, let us know if you want access to it - we really would like to share it with people who are passionate currently about the topic and would have the time and space for these efforts.

Be healthy

and see you soon,

Ideas Factory team

Architectural curiousities in Yasen village

Baba Residence handbook

Folklore group of Koshava - rehearsal

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Apr 13, 2024
Time for Reflection and Celebration

By Yoana Stoyanova | Project Leader

Hello from Iceland

Hello, dear Baba supporter!

We hope you are well and thriving!

The last few months have been quite devoted to the much needed time for reflection and finishing our last activities for the project "Revitalizing the villages through creative activites". As we have shared with you in the past year, it included: 6 artistic residencies, renovation of 6 spaces in the very same villages, cultural events (playback theater, contemporary circus performances and local brass bands), exhibitions and workshops and a big 2-day international forum in Vidin with the topic of how to improve the access to culture of small settlements. You probably wonder where did the celebration part go?

Well... to ICELAND! We had the chance, as part of this shared project Revitalizing the villages through creative activites", which was made possible thanks to the generous support of the FM of EEA grants 2014-2021 and the countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. We visited our local partner Gullkistan Center for Creativity, but more about this adventure - next time!

Now it's the time for the final effort to close this cycle of urban-rural co-creation - a handbook, which will guide you though the process of organizing an artistic 1-month Baba Residence in a village. Exciting, m?

In the spirit of our reflection and summarizing of what's has been achieved, I continue with a few visual sharings from our last year:

HERE you can have a glimpse of the newly renovated spaces in 6 villages and some of the events that have already happened in them.

HERE you can fo thorugh the last posts and meet the artists and the villages, which were part of our last year's urban-rural creativity and love.

HERE you can watch all the presentations and conversations from our 2-day international forum in Vidin in 2023.

HERE you can find the newly illustrated map of Baba Residence during the years - since 2014. We've summed up some of the warm tracks we left in 19 villages across Bulgaria.

HERE are the artistic results from our 6 artistic residencies in 6 villages in Northwestern Bulgaria this year.

Be well and please,

let us know if you want to meet us also in person this year,

Yoana and the Ideas Factory team

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