Train 20 Vulnerable Bulgarians in Entrepreneurship

The Covid-19 crisis in Bulgaria has completely changed our perception of business - small, family, or medium. In addition to tourism and restaurants, thousands of small businesses are affected who do not know if they will open their doors. And the losses can't even be calculated at the moment. Nearly 80 percent of the companies in Bulgaria are suffering direct or indirect losses from the crisis caused by the coronavirus epidemic, with the worst consequences for micro and small companies. Just over 21% of companies say the crisis has not affected them much. A significant part of businesses have resorted to measures such as putting employees on paid or unpaid leave or reducing working hours. At the same time, the vast majority of companies in Bulgaria (87.7%) are optimistic that they will be able to emerge from the crisis and resume their activities, with catastrophic expectations prevailing in the fields of tourism, restaurants, small manufacturing and service companies, and of culture.

We, with your help, were able to add a little optimism to those of our beneficiaries who owe us money and are not able to pay their monthly installments due to the quarantine. You probably know that part of our services are to provide loans for small and medium size businesses. We then are able to cover some of our administrative expenses with the interest the beneficiaries are paying. Well, during the quarantine, our beneficiaries have not been able to pay us back any of their monthly loan payments and we have not received any income as an organization. So, unintentionally they deprived us from our income. In the midst of all this crisis, in August 2020 we received a donation which was to be used for distributing food parcels to families affected by the quarantine. And so we started. Thanks to the help of donors, we have been able to distribute food parcels to more than 40 families in the last few months.These families have owned a small or medium-sized business and they have been forced to close it down. When we were reviewing the list of families, we decided to help all our debtors who have not paid us for a while.

Some of you may think it is foolish to help people that owe us money, but we believe that since our mission is to help small businesses in Bulgaria we should not be stopped by lockdowns (or other obstacles), and we should seek alternative ways to show care and support for these families. The Bible says “Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.” So, we decided to not respond in kind to these people, but instead, to feed them and show them that their debt to us cannot stop us from demonstrating love and practical aid. We wouldn’t be able to do that without your financial help, and we would like to THANK YOU for allowing us to express our care towards these families. We have included only a few pictures in this report, but you can be sure that there are many more touched by YOUR act of kindness in this difficult time.

THANK YOU once again and we wish you a wonderful and exciting New Year!