Dr. Neli Koleva, an expert in policy, communications, education, social entrepreneurship, and policy experimentation, delivered an exciting presentation and led an engaging discussion with participants from the first cohort of the Advocacy Academy program in Bulgaria.
Representatives from the business, government, and civil society sectors in Bulgaria discussed with Dr. Koleva the current priorities for Bulgarian society, existing challenges, and the bottlenecks hindering their successful management. The event emphasized the need for active and informed participation in the country’s democratic processes through the use of existing tools such as attending municipal council meetings, thematic parliamentary commissions, and various other public processes in government institutions.
Having more active advocates in society, equipped with the right skills and standing up for themselves and their communities, is essential for achieving real progress in critical areas like education and health. Public concerns will eventually become priorities for politicians if they are clearly and loudly expressed. However, the event highlighted the prevalence of disinformation and the lack of public awareness about the significant role NGOs play in providing crucial services to society’s most vulnerable groups.
Dr. Koleva agreed with the Advocacy Academy participants that numerous areas need improvement and can only be addressed through community-building and combined efforts from different sectors.
The recipe for success, as explained by Dr. Koleva, includes three steps:
- Start from somewhere, from wherever, just start advocating, inform yourself, make a step and the next one will follow; do not give up.
- Exercise the right for vote, even if there is no perfect option, choosing even the second-best or the lesser evil is better than not voting at all.
- Break the little balloons of social circle everybody has built for themselves and create larger communities serving the common good and sharing all the existing success stories to inspire more to come.
Dr. Koleva acknowledged the challenges faced by Bulgarian advocates, including the tendency to give up and feel exhausted. However, real change starts with small, everyday advocacy efforts, which align with CIDC’s mission to promote informed democratic citizenship in Bulgaria. It’s simply a matter of choosing a cause, building communities, and taking action.
This event was part of a series of side events, organized as part of the Academy, initiated by the Center for Information, Democracy, and Citizenship (CIDC) at the American University in Bulgaria, co-developed in partnership with BESCO – The Bulgarian Entrepreneurial Association, and supported by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
