Hello everyone! My name is Elena Dimitrova, I’m 21 years old, from the city of Pazardjik. I live close to the Roma neighborhood with my family. I am an only child. Despite that, I don’t feel alone because I have such wonderful friends and colleagues. I’m fluent in Bulgarian, Turkish, English, and Romani.

I’ve worked at Foundation Napredak for 6 six years, during this time I’ve worked as a volunteer. Also, I worked as a leader of the youth group in the Foundation. Foundation Napredak is an NGO for multiethnic cooperation, located in the Roma neighborhood in my town. I continue to work at there because I see real changes in the community where I live. For example, more girls attend school and the youth don’t marry as young as before. Currently, I work as a mediator for the new desegregation project. There are 8 other mediators who work with me and we are helping children to get to school and motivating them. We also are talking to the parents so that they will want to send their children to the schools in the center of town to help desegregate them.

I participated in Camp Zaedno Napred in 2001 and last summer I was a leader of a small group. I’ve also participated in different workshops in different countries and cities in Bulgaria. For example, this summer I went to Namibia as part of a volunteer program called Raleigh International. I was there for 5 weeks, working on different projects and different challenges.