Inter-ethnic Cooperation and Community Development in Bulgaria

Inter-Ethnic Cooperation and Community Development in

Bulgaria A Case Study for the Global Evaluation of

Partners for Democratic Change

Laina Reynolds Levy, PhD

2013

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www.partnersglobal.org

partners4democraticchange @Partners4DC Partners4DC

Research for this case study was carried out in Bulgaria during Spring and Summer 2013 in cooperation with the staff and field partners of Partners Bulgaria Foundation. It is part of a global evaluation of the contribution of Partners for Democratic Change and the members of Partners for Democratic Change International to building peace and democracy, supported by the GE Foundation

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Bulgaria www.partnersbg.org

Case Study: Inter-ethnic Cooperation in Bulgaria 2

INTRODUCTION: Samokov, Bulgaria May 2013 The group of women around the table murmur and smile appreciatively when Iskra pulls out a picture of her new baby. Her husband is Bulgarian and she is Roma, an unusual marriage in Samokov, a small city in the mountains south of the capital city of Sofia. The women explain that this is “real” ethnic interaction, a sign that relations between the majority and the embattled Roma minority are changing. Ten years ago, these women participated in the Partners Bulgaria Foundation (Partners-Bulgaria) “Ethnic Integration and Conflict Resolution” (EICR) program, and today they are gathered in the office of Partners-Samokov, the local affiliate of Partners Bulgaria, to talk about the long-term changes in their community that have resulted from the initiative. Iskra, now a primary school teacher, was a University student when she participated in the program. This feisty, dark-haired new mother is already a remarkable individual given how few young Roma women finish secondary school in Bulgaria. She participated in the various trainings offered by Partners Bulgaria – communication, conflict resolution, facilitation, leadership – and was hired as one of the two local coordinators of the program. Her example and her leadership, along with the examples of other EICR participants, have played no small part in convincing Roma families in Samokov to trust the municipality and other authorities, send their kids to school, and participate in community development projects. In Samokov and 12 other cities with large minority populations (Roma and/or Turkish), Partners Bulgaria ran the EICR activities from 2000 to 2007, developing an approach to improve ethnic relations by working together on community development. The Partners’ methodology of “Cooperative Planning,” was new for the country, and involved bringing together multi-ethnic groups of local citizens to discuss and then implement small projects to solve community problems in education, social services, and economic development. The Samokov groups ran summer camps, helped local Roma families start a strawberry farm, furnished a multi-ethnic kindergarten, set up new rehabilitation services for disabled children, and established new organizations. Partners Bulgaria taught them how to design and manage projects, how to facilitate meetings, and how to mediate community conflicts. Partners Bulgaria founded a local branch, Partners-Samokov, to help coordinate activities during EICR and provide continuity of connections and efforts initiated during the program. The Director, Milka Koshtrova, says that she still works together with many of the former program participants, especially in the education and social services sector. “If we start to provide a new social service, the others disseminate information. We still look to each other for advice and support.” They are realistic about the challenges facing Samokov, a struggling city in Bulgaria, the poorest country in the European Union. Most of the textile factories that were the backbone of the local economy are derelict. In the Roma quarter of the city, poverty is common and steady jobs are rare. Girls still have to walk to the local church to fill bottles of clean drinking water. However, Iskra and her colleagues feel optimistic that racist attitudes are changing in Samokov – they see better collaboration between municipal officials and the Roma community these days, and more young Roma graduating from secondary school. The legacy

of the program is evidences in these women’s friendly banter around the table, their network of mutual support over many years, and the cumulative effect of their efforts toward a better future for Samokov.

Background

Brief History of Roma Relations in Bulgaria: Bulgaria has a substantial Roma1 minority, as well as a large Turkish minority and many smaller minority groups. While the 2011 census reports that about 5% of the total population of 7.4 million people are Roma, experts estimate that the real number is between 700,000 and 800,000 people, or about 10% of the population.2 By every statistical measure, Roma are severely disadvantaged compared to other citizens of Bulgaria: health, education, housing, and employment to name just a few areas. Bulgarian Roma tend to live in spatially segregated Roma neighborhoods that suffer from poor access to municipal services such as electricity and transportation. According to World Bank data, only 19% of Bulgarian Roma graduate secondary school and around 0.3% hold a university diploma. Of working age Roma, 34% have jobs.3 After Bulgaria’s transition to democracy and a market economy beginning in 1989, Roma found themselves in a difficult downward spiral. Discrimination and poor-quality, segregated education meant that very few were qualified for the decreasing number of unskilled jobs available. Discrimination in the job market held even more Roma back from employment. Without jobs, and with ever-decreasing government services, people’s access to healthcare

1 Across Europe and within Bulgaria, Roma is an umbrella term that masks considerable intra-group diversity, including different tribal affiliations, religions, and mother tongues. 2 Disaggregating data by ethnicity in Bulgaria is problematic because researchers are forbidden by law from asking people about their ethnicity. 3 World Bank, Replicating Roma Success Stories in Bulgaria, 2013, http://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2013/09/11/replicating-roma-success-stories-in-bulgaria


and housing, and their ability to keep their children healthy and in school declined. Rural and poorer areas of Bulgaria, such as the Northwest region, suffered the most from the economic nose-dive, and people (including Roma) began to migrate in large numbers to the bigger cities and to other countries. The overall population of Bulgaria has sharply declined during this transition, from a peak of about 9 million in 1989 to no more than 7.3 million, according to the 2011 census. While the population of Sofia has grown, most other cities and towns have shrunk. The roads of Bulgaria are littered with abandoned villages and enormous crumbling factories and warehouses where people used to work. The population decline is largely due to the emigration of young people and very low fertility rates.4 Ethnic nationalism was suppressed under Communist doctrine, but after 1989, ethnic conflict came roaring back into the political life of Bulgaria as well as other countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Ethnic Bulgarian nationalism focused more on perceived external imperialist threats than on internal minority issues, but Bulgaria’s Roma did experience increased discrimination and violence at the hands of police and sometimes their own neighbors. The participation of some Roma in organized crime networks and petty crime added to the discrimination. In neighboring Yugoslavia, ethnic cleavages were a highly visible factor contributing to the bloody wars that broke the country apart. An increasing number of European and liberal-oriented Bulgarians saw the alarming state of minorities in Bulgaria and other CEE countries as a driver of instability, and as a liability in the process of joining the European Union and other Western institutions.5 As foundations, development agencies, and other donors became involved in CEE reform efforts, the civil society sector all across the region grew exponentially during the late 1990s and early 2000s. A spectrum of NGOs, from grassroots Roma groups, to larger organizations based in Sofia like CEGA (Creating Effective Grassroots Alternatives), to international NGOs like the Open Society Institute, Catholic Relief Services and Partners for Democratic Change became key players in the effort to improve living conditions and human rights for Roma and other ethnic minorities. A key phrase became “conflict prevention,” because no one wanted to see the spread of conflict from neighboring countries into Bulgaria. The country was suffering economically and politically from the conflict situation, but it did not have the deep ethnic cleavages apparent in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia. The EICR was designed as a conflict prevention program to ensure that Bulgaria’s thus far peaceful situation between the majority and the minorities did not worsen and become violent.

4 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/world/europe/10iht-bulgaria.3102726.html 5 Bulgaria applied to join the EU in 1995 and opened formal negotiations in 2000. http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/archives/bulgaria/eu_bulgaria_relations_en.htm

The crucial aspect of this context for understanding the impact of the EICR program is that the years 2000-2007 were a time of action and hope as far as Bulgaria’s minorities, particularly Roma, were concerned. Roma were organizing at the European, national, and local level to advocate for their rights. Governments and regional inter-governmental organizations produced about 40 new policies, regulations, and action plans between 2001 and 2007.6 Donors were supplying money for projects of all sizes. Bulgaria ramped up efforts to bring national policies in line with EU standards, including enacting reforms to make local government more responsive and accountable. Along with eight other countries, Bulgaria signed on to the “Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015” initiative with promises to make big steps in improving access to quality education, housing, employment, and healthcare.7

Then Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007. Many international donors withdrew from the country, and EU funding mechanisms proved too cumbersome to support the same level of civil society activity for minority inclusion. From 2008 onwards, the global financial crisis erased the meager economic improvements that Bulgaria had made over the previous decade. Unemployment rose across the country, but hit Roma particularly hard. Racist violence against Roma has increased.8 Governmental commitments to better housing, education, and healthcare for Roma have only partially realized because promised levels of funding were not allocated to the strategic goals proclaimed on paper. In 2011, Tomislav Donchev, the Bulgarian Minister in charge of managing EU funds, said, “clearly, the past measures did not work, therefore a new approach is needed.” The socio-economic situation of Roma continues to be marginal and the gap between Roma and the majority has not been significantly reduced. There have been small improvements in educational outcomes for Roma, and in the visibility and representation of Roma in government bodies locally and nationally – the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy has several agencies dedicated to social inclusion that deal extensively with this issue. Roma mayors and city councilors have been elected at the local level, however, this representation has not guaranteed equality. None of the existing political parties have a platform that targets mobilization of Roma voters, indeed the political incentives in the May 2013 elections seemed to favor racist scapegoating of Roma and manipulation of Roma votes using bribes and other fraudulent tactics.9

6 USAID (2007). Strategic Review of the Interethnic Interaction Program for Inclusive Community Development. p. 1. 7 www.romadecade.org 8 Economist (Oct 2011), Out in the Streets: Anti-Roma violence spreads across the EU’s poorest country. http://www.economist.com/node/21531502 9 Chuck Sudetic (2013) “Roma in Political Life: Bulgaria—Political Manipulation and the Damage Done.” http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/roma-political-life-bulgaria-political-manipulation-and-damage-done

Key elements of 2000 context • Persistent Roma poverty, unemployment,

discrimination, & exclusion • Ethnic tension • Instability, war, economic disaster in

neighboring countries • Political instability and fragmented

reform, leading to uncertainty, central/local government conflicts, late social payments, and other governance problems

• Growth of NGO sector and small-scale Roma inclusion projects


The Birth of Partners Bulgaria Foundation: Partners for Democratic Change (Partners) had been working on ethnic conciliation issues in Bulgaria since 1991, initially through universities. In response to the long and bumpy transition from Communism, Partners hired Dr. Daniela Kolarova in 1998, a sociologist with a background in mediation, communication, and intergroup relations, as the founding director of Partners Bulgaria Foundation, a locally registered independent non-governmental organization (NGO). Dr. Kolarova still heads the organization. At that time, Bulgarians had just elected a reformist government following a disastrous currency and inflation crisis, and were hopeful that integration of the country into international institutions like NATO and the European Union would help stabilize social tensions and create greater prosperity. Partners Bulgaria’s mission is “to facilitate the process of democratic development in Bulgaria by supporting institutions, NGOs and specialists to improve policies and practices in areas like judicial law, social care, child protection, education, economic development and ecology.”10 The Foundation’s first programs included mediation and human rights education. They have continued these areas of work, and have developed special expertise in cooperative planning and supporting the integration of marginalized children and youth. In 2000, Partners Bulgaria was awarded one of the first grants to a local organization by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to focus on ethnic integration and conflict prevention. Initially, the EICR program was awarded to address growing tension between Roma and Bulgarian residents of Lom, a very poor city in Northwestern Bulgaria. Partners Bulgaria was a young organization but had credibility with USAID because of its work in conflict resolution and its affiliation with a US-based sponsoring organization. The program then expanded over the next 7 years to include 13 municipalities, first focusing on cities with a large proportion of Roma residents, then expanding to include cities with large Turkish minorities. The EICR Program was an important project for Partners Bulgaria; it positioned the organization as a credible national expert on conflict resolution and multi-stakeholder planning, supported the growth of the organization for nearly a decade, and provided development opportunities for staff as trainers and experts on facilitation, social inclusion, and grants management. Partners Bulgaria continues as a slightly smaller but still nationally prominent NGO. It has built a solid reputation for working with marginalized populations, especially people with disabilities, children and youth. Of the various field offices and affiliate NGOs established during the EICR program, Partners Samokov, Partners Dupnitsa, Partners Targovishte, and Partners Kyustendil are still operational.

Ethnic Integration and Conflict Resolution (EICR) Program 2000-2007 Purpose and Approach: When Daniela Kolarova, the Director of Partners Bulgaria, first came to Lom in 2000 to launch the new EICR program, relations between Lom’s large Roma community and the Bulgarian majority were so bad that Roma leaders were shocked to have Bulgarians sit at the same table with them. Lom was chosen as the first location precisely

10 http://www.partnersbg.org

because it was (and remains today) one of the poorest cities in Bulgaria, with little hope of reviving its port on the Danube or modernizing its rusting Communist-era chemical and metallurgy industries. One year later, the program was extended to include two more cities with a large proportion of Roma citizens, Samokov and Kyustendil. In 2003, Partners Bulgaria expanded the program to include four additional communities with mixed Bulgarian, Roma and Turkish populations - Asenovgrad, Dupnitsa, Samokov and Targovishte. In 2004, six additional communities with predominantly Turkish Muslim populations were added: Aytos, Devin, Isperih, Kardjali, Momchilgrad and Razgrad. Partners Bulgaria and USAID chose each project location based on each city’s demographic profile, looking for mid-size towns between 30,000-60,000 inhabitants with at least 20-30% minorities. In addition, they looked at how badly the local economy was faring, and whether there were other similar initiatives already running in each location. The total population of all 13 municipalities was about 426,000 according to the 2001 census. The program closed in May 2007, having spent $7 million dollars over the course of 7 years. The goal of the EICR in its very first iteration in 2000 was, “to promote inter-ethnic and inter-sectoral cooperation in Lom, facilitate ethnic conciliation, and increase the effectiveness of minority groups and others working with them in improving the condition of the minority community in Lom.”11 Partners Bulgaria developed this approach based on a theory of change that is shared amongst the global network of Partners’ affiliates throughout the world: If we build individual skills, bring people together to form relationships, and set up structures in which these people can use their skills and maintain their relationships over time, we can reduce prejudice and improve living conditions for all community members. Partners Bulgaria developed a program that was participatory, pragmatic, and solution-focused. The organization played the role of process advocate. The Partners Bulgaria team brought training and a set of participatory processes and values to each location, but crucially, left the identification of problems and design of solutions to the participants themselves. The approach exemplifies the classic tenet of conflict resolution articulated by Fisher and Ury as “separate the people from the problem.12” Instead of directly asking participants to work on prejudice and conflict issues, Partners Bulgaria asked them to work side-by-side on problems that affected the whole community, like economic development, access to social services and education of minority children. Partners Bulgaria believed that, through this approach, people would come to see each other as partners in the effort to improve their city, rather than as adversaries. The EICR program was inclusive of both majority and minority populations (first Roma, then also Turkish). This was an important choice – development projects targeting minorities to the exclusion of others have the potential to ignite tension in the community. Later, in 2011, the European Commission recognized “explicit but not exclusive targeting” as one of its 10

11 From PBF’s 2000 project application to USAID, “Ethnic Integration and Conflict Resolution in the City of Lom.” 12 Roger Fisher, William Ury (1981). Getting to Yes. (Penguin Books: New York).


Common Basic Principles for Roma Inclusion.13 As the initiative evolved, Partners Bulgaria began calling it the “Interethnic Interaction Program (IIP)” because the terms “integration” and “conflict resolution” were problematic, implying that minority communities should assimilate into majority culture instead of maintaining their distinctiveness, and that there were already conflicts within these communities, rather than shared problems. Summary of Outputs and Outcomes The program’s immediate outputs included:

• 1062 people trained in the Cooperative Planning process: 40% Bulgarians, 30% Turkish people, 30% Roma. Approximately half were women

• 200 community projects funded: 72 in the area of education, 60 in social services, and 68 in economic and business development

• 300 people training in community mediation • 431 disputes mediated, mostly family issues and mostly brought by Roma to the

mediation centers. • 365 people trained in the Leadership Institute, of which 149 (half Roma and half Turkish)

passed the exam to become trainers • 436 jobs created

USAID conducted a final evaluation of the program in 2007. The evaluators concluded that the main asset left by the program was, “a core group of people with increased self-esteem, knowledge, a new type of relations, and supported local civil society structures and practices that are to continue working for positive change and improving the quality of life in isolated communities. (emphasis added)14” This echoes and reinforces the three main elements of the project’s theory of change: Skills, Relationships, and Structures.

Photo 1: A promotional poster for the EICR from Partners Bulgaria

13http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/youth/Source/Resources/Documents/2011_10_Common_Basic_Principles_Roma_Inclusion.pdf

14 USAID (2007). p. 10.

Program Activities and Results In Lom and in other cities as the program expanded, Partners Bulgaria recruited and organized people into three main groups. There was a Cooperative Planning group, a Conciliation Commission, and a Leadership Institute for Roma and Turkish minority leaders. Each of these groups went through a series of trainings in the core skills appropriate to their tasks, for example, the members of the Conciliation Commission were trained in conflict resolution, and the Cooperative Planning groups were trained in proposal development and project management (among other topics). These components are described in more detail below, together with some reflection on how they addressed the different levels of the theory of change. Cooperative Planning: The Cooperative Planning component was the largest and most complex part of the overall EICR intervention, so it provides a useful window into how the program worked overall. “Cooperative Planning” is Partners’ name for a voluntary, participatory process by a group of community stakeholders to address a specific issue or problem through collaboration and communication. Cooperative Planning is typically used to deal with complex issues where no single agency, organization, or sector has the ability to impose a solution. Bulgaria’s history of autocratic, centralized government meant that citizens had very little experience of collaborative decision-making or having any kind of real voice in community development priorities. Based on their initial needs assessment for the EICR project, Partners Bulgaria convened three Cooperative Planning sub-groups in each city around the topics of: access to education, social services, and economic development. They convinced a diverse cross-section of the community to participate using old-fashioned footwork: community gatherings, newspaper announcements, and meetings with government and community leaders. The program’s focus on solving real community needs was also a strategy to motivate participation; more people are inclined to give their time and energy to a process if they believe there will be a concrete benefit for themselves and their neighbors. Skills: The Cooperative Planning groups participated in a series of trainings that introduced them to new skills and helped them form relationships and bond as a group. The curriculum included three main modules: (1) Participatory Community Planning, (2) Inclusive Development Models, and (3) Project Development and Design. Looking back, Vasilka Aleksandrova said, “The most important change as a result of the program was that people learned to develop and write projects. Before, there were just a few people in Kyustendil who know how to do this.” Katinka Borisova of Lom also felt that the skills she and the other participants learned were extremely important. She said, “This project helped me become a professional.” In Samokov, Dimitrinka Milenkova, the Director of a social rehabilitation center that was started with an EICR grant is still using templates for reports and project management that she said were based on the Partners Bulgaria training. Considering the extent to which development work and grant funding is almost entirely project-based, these are clearly important skills to have. EICR participants have gone on to apply successfully to other grant schemes for project funding, including EU institutions, Open Society Foundation, and other donors. Partners Bulgaria is not the only organization in Bulgaria to offer project management training, in these cities Partners Bulgaria was one of the first and is widely regarded by participants as the best.

More people are inclined to give their time and energy to a process if they believe there will be a concrete benefit for themselves and their neighbors


Anna Angelova, the Director of a local NGO in Kyustendil reports, “We have other projects now, but we still use the skills from Partners-Bulgaria.” Relationships: The Cooperative Planning groups included people from the municipal government, Roma community leaders, women, men, teachers, and other active citizens, who thus had an opportunity to work together in a neutral environment (training) and establish a relational foundation for the community work they did later in the program and beyond. In Samokov, the head of the Directorate for Social Support noted that this initiative provided the basis for collaboration between the municipality and Roma Leaders, which continues to this day. He felt that after this program, “NGOs started to respect the needs of Roma.” He felt that if the program were to be replicated today, it would be easier to start because, “Roma have seen good results from cooperation. They trust service providers now.” Iskra Raleva, the EICR Roma Coordinator in Samokov, said, “The municipality is open to us, and we are open to the municipality. This happened as a result of the program – it was not like this before.” A Roma Leadership Institute graduate in Kyustendil said,

“A lot of municipal workers who took part in these trainings, they didn’t believe in the Roma community. They have changed. They want to work toward helping the Roma community. Not just my coworkers, but many other people. The Roma community is not what they thought it would be. They started to look differently at Roma; that they are not different people.”

In Lom, Samokov, and Kyustendil, ex-participants have a strong feeling that the relationships they developed during the program have endured and been extremely helpful over the years. They frequently refer to each other as a “team” and mention how they still help each other with projects and problems. Ginka Strahilova, former Deputy Mayor of Lom, said, “This project gave us the opportunity to get to know each other as people.” One of her co-participants was recently running a Roma educational project using space she leased from the municipality. Due to municipal budget cutbacks, the project was in danger of losing the space. The network of former EICR participants mobilized, and their lobbying efforts convinced the municipality to extend the lease. In Kyustendil, EICR local coordinator Veska Milanova, has worked together with former participants on many different projects in the years since the EICR program ended. She says, “Our participants are at the center of all new projects in Kyustendil.” Partners Bulgaria brought the Cooperative Planning methodology to the national level in 2003 by convening a Working Group on Roma Access to the Labor Market. The goal of the group was to draft a practical strategy to address the many factors contributing to the high Roma unemployment rate, a requirement for Bulgarian accession to the EU. The group included around 50 people from academia, government ministries and agencies, Roma NGOs, international experts, and Roma community representatives. Partners Bulgaria facilitated 40 plenary meetings and numerous sub-committee meetings, in which the working group defined and prioritized the problems, set goals and objectives, and discussed solutions. Partners Bulgaria also facilitated a series of public debates on the topic of Roma social inclusion to foster ethnic tolerance and encourage further involvement of key institutions and organizations in the implementation of the new strategy. The working group finalized the strategy in

November 2004 and presented it to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. Although the strategy was never fully implemented, parts of the document were used in Bulgaria’s Action Plan for the Decade of Roma Inclusion and in other government programs and actions. Partners Bulgaria’s work on this process earned them national exposure and built their reputation as a convener and facilitator of policy debates. Tonislava Sotirova, a participant in the working group and now Head of Policies of Social Inclusion, Children and Families Unit at the Ministry, said, “Honestly, the document is still just a document. But the process was important. It established good relationships between NGOs and government in the area of policy. I still work with many of these people.” Dr. Kolarova reports that aspects of the original working group’s document have been used in several government policies and strategies since 2004. Structures: The Cooperative Planning training had a very practical focus – each of the groups was tasked with diagnosing the main problems in their city related to their focus area (education, social services, and economic development), and to come up with ideas to address them. These ideas became the basis for EICR’s small local grants, which functioned as pilots for innovative ideas and approaches that were uniquely suited to the needs of each community. For example, in Kyustendil the social services Cooperative Planning group had the idea of using “Health Mediators” to interface between the isolated Roma neighborhood and the healthcare system, offering transportation to clinics, education about health topics, and other kinds of support to help Roma access medical care. The EICR grant funded five local Health Mediators for one year, but the model was so successful that it spread across Bulgaria. The government has adopted the practice, and there are now 130 Health Mediators working in the country. According to Vasilka Aleksandrova, a nurse who worked with the program from the beginning, health knowledge among Roma and access to health care has improved because of this new institution. Raina Gavrikova of Samokov remembers her work with the economic development Cooperative Planning group “like sunshine in these hard times.” Along with other participants, she worked on a small grant project to plant 10 hectares of strawberries with 15 Roma families. From a very small initial investment, the strawberry farm provided income for the families for five years. They were then able to apply successfully to the EU to plant a 30-hectare fruit orchard with an irrigation system, which has now been in existence for three years. Like the strawberry farm project, the EICR’s 68 small grants for job creation and economic development were quite localized in their impact. Partners Bulgaria found in 2005 that some of the job placements subsidized by the program in its first phase were no longer viable and some businesses had folded. However, in other cases, the impact of the grant has been sustained even in 2013, with local business owners still using ovens, sausage-making machines, and walk-in refrigerators that were bought with the small grant funds. The most important result of these business projects was the promotion of better collaboration between majority and minority citizens, and giving the local entrepreneurs important business, project, and collaboration skills. In Raina’s words, “Together, we created this network of professionals and working people. And this is the most important impact for the community. We are really recognizable within the community as people who work on these issues.” While it is important to understand the continuing context of Roma poverty in Bulgaria, the EICR grants gave


community members hands-on experience of how inter-community collaboration can help create prosperity, or as it is sometimes called, “shared value.” The small grants were important for the success and sustainability of the program in three ways.

1. They provided a practical laboratory for community members to practice and refine the skills they had learned in training, and deepened cooperative relationships.

2. By visibly addressing (and investing in) pressing community concerns about jobs, social services, and education, they gave credibility to the project approach, to the idea of ethnic cooperation, and to Partners Bulgaria as an organization.

3. In both the planning and implementation phases they promoted cross-sector collaboration between municipal structures and civil society, which was not common practice at the time. For example, the social rehabilitation centers in Lom and Samokov opened in facilities donated by the municipality.

Photo 2: Former small grantees in Kyustendil still run their grocery store in the Roma quarter

Structures: Conciliation Commissions (Mediation Centers). Katya Ivanova, the EICR program coordinator in Lom, is known to the ladies at her local grocery story as “the one who divorces people.” This is not because of her smile or dark blonde curls – the local Mediation Center that she ran resolved more than 84 family law cases during and after the EICR program. Many of these involved married Roma couples that had been separated for many years, for example when the husband emigrated to get a job and did not come back. Lacking money and trust in the regular judicial system, these families had not sought an official divorce. After reaching a mediated agreement, however, the couples were able to submit to the courts for an official divorce decision. In addition to these kinds of family disputes, Partners Bulgaria trained and organized new mediators into Conciliation Commissions with a mandate to organize hearings on controversies between majority and minority communities, mediate disputes and conflicts related to ethnic minorities, and facilitate dialogue between different groups in each municipality.

The concrete benefits of having a local structure with a dispute resolution mandate became very clear to the residents of Lom when Conciliation Commission mediators successfully resolved a dispute between the electricity supply company and residents of a Roma neighborhood. After many years of sporadic and non-existent payment of bills, the electric company started to cut electric service to the Roma neighborhood. But the system was set up so that if they cut power to houses on a street that were not paying, they also cut off the one house that was paying. Roma were furious, and also suspicious about the electric company charges not being fair. After many meetings with local leaders, a settlement was reached to pay many of the bills using gradual repayments and postponements, and electricity was restored. Partners Bulgaria evolved a strategy to institutionalize and sustain the Conciliation Commissions as local service centers, renaming them as Mediation Centers. These Centers spearheaded the spread and institutionalization of mediation as an alternative to litigation in Bulgaria. Many of the 300 people trained in mediation under EICR became licensed mediators after Bulgaria passed its Mediation Act in 2003, and were founding members of the National Association of Mediators. Petromir Kanshev, a prominent lawyer and mediator who conducted many trainings for the EICR, said,

“When we discussed with the government to have a special law for Mediation, experts said it would be good to have cases to prove that mediation could work. We taught all these people in all these cities, and they did mediation during the project. We provided the documentation of these cases, and said, here you have cases and mediation is working well. It was the evidence base.”

Mr. Kanshev and Dr. Kolarova of Partners Bulgaria noted that mediation has become a common practice and a service offered by many lawyers and others in Bulgaria in large part due to the organization’s success in creating the legal framework for mediation and spreading the practice throughout the country. Skills: Leadership Institute. Georgy Georgiev of Lom is an imposing man who overcame many barriers to become a teacher in his Roma neighborhood. He credits his participation in the EICR’s Leadership Institute for his successful career, “ I learned how to build, establish, and motivate a group of people. Later on, for 12 years I was a Municipal Advisor. This happened because of the project.” He is now the Deputy Head Master of his school and continues to be involved in after-school projects for Roma children at risk of dropping out of school. His story is not unusual among the graduates of the Leadership Institute, who participated in series of trainings on leadership, management, training, and networking skills for community organizing.

These Centers spearheaded the spread and institutionalization of mediation as an alternative to litigation in Bulgaria


Photo 3: Georgy Georgiev at the EICR focus group in Lom

The Leadership Institute graduates became an important local resource for supporting the grant projects and the local Partners Bulgaria affiliates. The graduates who Partners Bulgaria certified as trainers (149 out of 365) became co-trainers with the organization on a variety of modules, and some were even hired as the local minority member of the EICR local coordinating team. Ognyana Najdenova, the Roma coordinator in Lom, said that she considered 100% of the Leadership Institute graduates from Lom to be “successes” in that they are all currently working, many of them with the municipality, with NGOs, and with local schools. Graduates from other cities have become mayors, municipal officials, teachers, leaders of NGOs, and even, in one case, a member of the Bulgarian Parliament (one of the Coordinators in Asenovgrad – Silvia Hubenova). Iskra Raleva, the local coordinator in Samokov, said, “All the knowledge and skills I have and use now are thanks to this program.” The Leadership Institute exemplifies how important it is to invest heavily in minority leaders’ skills and professional development for individual empowerment and transformation of key people within the community. The graduates have certainly had an effect on people around them as they have gone on to teach and lead community development projects. However, the size of the group of trainees was necessarily limited by the size and scope of the program and the Leadership Institute ended with the termination of the EICR. Bulgaria could still use more leaders from ethnic minorities in all fields and at all levels. Similar efforts would benefit from systematic monitoring of the participants in a leadership program over the long term to see how much of a multiplier effect this kind of intervention has.

Long Term Impacts: Local structures providing a base for skilled people and ongoing cooperative relationships The EICR program left a strong legacy in each of the participating municipalities. Nearly a decade later, the personal skills, the web of local relationships, and the institutionalized structures are still evident when talking to program participants. Penka Penkova, the principal

of a local high school, EICR participant, and former mayor of Lom, said, “What we got, we didn’t spoil it. We kept it here in Lom. The technology is temporary, but the people keep going.” Her story is a testament to the strength of the team of EICR participants in Lom. They felt that the previous mayor was not active enough in accessing funds from the EU and other donors. They worked together to mobilize supporters and helped elect Ms. Penkova to serve two terms as mayor (2004-2012).

Photo 4: Penka Penkova (center) at the high school in Lom she now runs with Daniela Kolarova and Rumen Minkovsky of PBF Impact Example: Local Social Rehabilitation Centers. Daniela Kolarova describes Siana Borisova of Lom as a “treasure.” Under the EICR, this music teacher learned to use “Music Interaction Therapy,” a new methodology pioneered in the UK and brought to Bulgaria by PBF 15 , to help children with disabilities learn to communicate and interact. The social rehabilitation center where she still works was established under an EICR small grant with municipal support. The value of her work is clear to one teenage client with severe learning disabilities, who attends a mainstream school. He says, “I come regularly because it helps me communicate with the other children.” Lom’s social rehabilitation center is thriving; it will soon expand to offer residential services, and they are planning a new public-private partnership to employ people with disabilities. “When EICR started, there were no social services in Lom. Now, Lom is providing services for the whole region,” says Ivo Ivanov, the mayor of Lom. In the past, disabled children in Bulgaria have suffered from extreme isolation and social stigma; parents either cared for them at home with little support, or they were put into institutional homes where they had little chance of receiving the therapies that might help them integrate into school, work, or other parts of mainstream society. Sometimes, Roma children with no mental disabilities have been forced into special education schools, permanently damaging their future chances of higher education and rewarding employment. EICR grants offered the chance to test an entirely new model, in which children were individually evaluated and offered a range of therapies to help them communicate, learn skills,

15 PBF video about the Music Interaction Therapy project: http://vimeo.com/8275834


and interact with others. Instead of stark institutional homes, social rehabilitation centers like the ones in Lom and Samokov offer bright, cheerful play spaces, qualified teachers and therapists, and support for parents and other caregivers. Both Centers have become sustainable local institutions, receiving ongoing support from their respective municipalities as well as from the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy and other sources. This model of care has spread to other, non-EICR locations and has had an impact on the way disabled children are treated all over Bulgaria. Impact Example: Health Mediators. Another example of an innovative practice first tested through an EICR small grant is the Health Mediator project in Kyustendil. Local Roma community members were trained to provide a variety of educational and practical support services to people in the Roma neighborhood who had difficulty accessing medical care. This could range from driving Roma from outlying villages to clinics, or helping explain medication prescriptions. One of the program coordinators said, ““when there were no mediators, many illiterate Roma did not where to go or how to explain their health problems… Thanks to us, many people now obtain timely medical help in the specialized clinics of Sofia.” According to Vasilka Aleksandrova, a nurse and one of the founders of the Health Mediator project, “We started with just five mediators, but the model was so successful it spread to the whole country until finally we are 130 mediators.” She believes that health knowledge among Roma and access to health care had improved because of this institution. The Ministry of Health has recognized Health Mediators and the model has become widespread across Bulgaria, and has even been replicated in neighboring countries with the support of the Open Society Institute.16 Vasilka’s organization is still strong and active, with many different health-related projects and funders. It is notable that the social service grants created some of the most systemic and durable impacts coming out of EICR. Participants saw a clear need in their communities for these services, and EICR gave them the space to work on these issues together. Why and how did these small grants contribute to real change in the social service sector? Several factors worked together to enable these results:

1. Context of reform/ Good timing: At the time of the projects, Bulgaria was in the midst of decentralizing many government functions from the central to the municipal level, including social services. This process was part of preparing for EU accession. At the municipal level, there was very little capacity to manage or deliver on many of the new jobs they were being handed, and so they were looking for local capacity, local groups, and people who had experience and models to offer. These EICR projects offered solutions that were tested and trusted by all communities at exactly the time the system was open to grassroots innovation. Partners Bulgaria provided a trusted platform through which local results could be communicated to national decision-makers.

2. Existing capacity: The projects built on Bulgaria’s existing resources, which included a base of specialized, qualified professionals (social workers, healthcare professionals, and lawyers) who had associations, networks, and professional standards that tied them together and enabled new approaches to spread.

16 http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/roma-health-mediators-successes-and-challenges

3. Long-term follow-through: Importantly, Partners Bulgaria and its local affiliates have stayed active in this area of work. The EICR investment helped build their expertise in social policy and in local implementation of social policy frameworks, which they have maintained as one of their core program areas to this day. Partners Bulgaria additional programs such as “Support for Young People Leaving Care” and “For a Childhood without Violence” exemplify their ongoing commitment through the years. Continuity of work and funding is another important factor in helping these very local projects spread their impact to a wider audience.

In the cases where EICR was able to spark momentum toward systemic change, all three elements of the theory of change have come together in a synergistic way. The skills provided in EICR trainings were timely and useful. The project built strong relationships where they had not existed before, for example between local NGOs and the municipalities. Crucially, the new local structures, from local NGOs to social rehabilitation centers, to the Mediators Association, provided an institutional home for the trained professionals and provided a durable focal point for relationship-building.

Challenges to long term inter-ethnic cooperation and tolerance 2007 marked a major transition for the whole country of Bulgaria. For Partners Bulgaria and the EICR, as well as for other non-profits, accession to the European Union came with a whole suite of consequences that have worked against the long-term viability of some social programs. Many donors, including USAID withdrew from Bulgaria after EU accession. Private foundations and bilateral donors were unable to continue funding for minority integration projects at the same level. Bulgaria is eligible for significant EU structural funding for social inclusion, but has yet not accessed most of it. At the same time, EU institutions have had limited cooperation with civil society, and have such cumbersome procurement practices that many small NGOs are unable to work with them. Local sources of philanthropy are under-developed. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, funding has shrunk even further. With most European countries focused on recovering from the financial crisis, the issue of Roma inclusion has been on the back burner since 2008 across the whole region. Increasing poverty in the country has truly been working against Roma equality – in Kyustendil the focus group participants said that now, Roma parents were less concerned with making sure their children attended school because they needed them to work and make money for basic survival needs. Hard economic times have fueled ethnic resentment all over the country. EICR locations started out as some of the most structurally disadvantaged towns and cities in Bulgaria, and the continued economic disaster has caused them to slip even further behind. The ongoing political instability in Bulgaria has also created challenges for any work in the area of good governance. Administration after administration has proven unable to live up to promises of rooting out corruption and restoring economic growth. The fight for genuine political representation and economic survival has meant that social needs are low on the list of priorities at both the national and local level. In the summer of 2013 there were mass protests in Sofia related to people’s frustration with the government, which claims to be a democracy but has largely been captured to serve the interests of the powerful and moneyed ex-Communist Bulgarian elite. In this broader context, the small gains, local leadership and social


networks established from the EICR program need continual attention and support for social cohesion efforts to have a long-term impact.

Conclusion A complex social issue like Roma inequality in Bulgaria requires long-term, sustained efforts by many governmental and non-governmental actors. Macro factors regarding economic development, government effectiveness, the fight against organized crime, and entrenched cultural biases all contribute to the problems of social inclusion and equality in the region. The EICR program of Partners Bulgaria offered new tools and platforms for collaboration at the local level in the target 13 cities, which have contributed to the start of a slow cultural shift and supported a new generation of leadership. National-level statistics on Roma exclusion and unemployment continue to be formidable in Bulgaria. However, former EICR participants in Lom, Samokov, and Kyustendil are certain that the program created significant changes for them and for their communities. The impacts they report are consistent with the theory that ethnic integration can be advanced by investing in personal skills, productive relationships, and more inclusive institutions. The way of working on Roma issues in Bulgaria has certainly shifted – when the EU asked Bulgaria to draft a new National Roma Integration Strategy for 2012-2020, the working group included over 60 people, half of whom came from the NGO community. While the process will be on-going for another generation, the work of Partners Bulgaria and their local affiliates have collectively made it more participatory and open. Some of the most important impacts resulted directly from the emphasis on eliciting local solutions to local problems. Partners Bulgaria’s participatory approach and commitment to building local human capacity created a new dynamic in the EICR cities, where participants could envision a better future and actively participate in making that future happen together. In turn, the pilot projects demonstrated the viability of reforms, particularly in the social services sector and new mediation field, which could be taken up by national institutions. The systemic impact of some of the small grant projects, like the social rehabilitation centers, shows the importance of combining innovation at the grassroots level, together with a context of change and flux at the macro level, and the role of bridge-builders who can link the two.