The Young Climate Professionals program launches with participants from 7 countries. At its very core is enhancing individuals’ sustainability competences. We believe that the YCPs will become agents of change who can help tackle climate issues and actively support the green transition. During our closing meeting in Berlin, the most outstanding project ideas will receive […]
Lawyers assisting civic education teachers
The joint project of the Sofia Platform Foundation and Street Law, Inc., supported by the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria, ‘Lawyers Helping Civics Teachers’ has come to an end. The goal of the initiative is to assist civic education (CE) teachers in Bulgaria in teaching topics with a legal focus by including the participation of lawyers in […]
New report: From ‘civic deserts’ to civic cohesion
For the past three years, our team has been working in several peripheral areas in Europe, referred to as ‘civic deserts’ – a term that describes those places perceived as offering few to no opportunities to actively participate in and learn about civic life, mainly because of deficient civic infrastructure and low civic literacy. The key findings and recommendations are now available in the report “From ‘civic deserts’ to civic cohesion”.
Conclusions report of the Local Democracy Lab in Bulgaria
Sofia Platform Foundation in collaboration with Democratic Society, City of Reykjavik and Citizens Foundation, organized a Local Democracy Lab – an online public deliberation event to discuss the condition of democracy through the lens of the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the Populism and Civic Engagement (PaCE) project. The event took place in the town […]
Mapping civic education in Europe
Visual mapping and network analysis of civic education in Europe. THE CIVICS Innovation Hub is a pan-European non-profit organisation, founded in 2021. The mission is to strengthen the democratic competence, self-efficacy, and resilience of citizens across Europe in a bottom-up manner. THE CIVICS supports both citizens and civic educators to deal with major challenges of […]
Stand-up comedy “Made in EU”
This conversation about the EU is not going to be held in a class room or a conference hall. The Sofia Platform Foundation and Inside Joke Stand-up Comedy are organizing a series of three stand-up comedy shows “Made in EU” with the support of the German Embassy in Sofia. The aim of the project is […]
Meet the participants vol. 2: Civic Europe Capacity Building in Bulgaria
As the second group completed their Capacity Building training as part of the Civic Europe program, we are excited to introduce you to the participants and the community initiatives that they are working on within the program. Stay tuned for more in the upcoming weeks! Civic Europe is an incubator for locally rooted civic initiatives, […]
What Will the Neighbors Think?
© Nikolay Doychinov Originally published in German language in the digital magazine “AufRuhr”: https://www.aufruhr-magazin.de/europa/die-quelle-der-teilhabe/. They work as teachers, live in the Bulgarian provinces, and advocate democratic participation – despite all fear of judgment by others. While Katya Brankova is raising awareness about the potential of natural water sources in Razlog, Fikrie Bozova is encouraging single […]
What role does civil society play in times of transition?
What role does civil society play in times of transition? Do join us to discuss this question in a histoTALK on 15 March, 2pm CET! Join the webinar at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81187626676. A live stream will be available on Facebook. A strong civil society is key for any democracy, but it has an even more important role […]
Documentary series: Sofia, 1989: in the footsteps of a revolution
The end of WWII, in 1945, was ground zero for Europe and the world. The West began to rebuild their homes, institutions, and re-commit to democratic norms. But the East set on a 45-year long path in which communism extended its tentacles into every aspect of the societies. In a way, the fall of the […]
Through the lens of Transition
Series of online talks Through the lens of Transition – How the corona pandemic brings back images of the time of transition In this series of talks, organized in the context of the Transition Dialogue project,we are going to gather impressions from different countries on issues that bring back images of the transition period. The […]
Online training: Hosting a good online meeting
Given the current situation, the need for online meeting formats grew exponentially and is now more important than ever. With this comes the inevitability to start training ourselves in both adapting to the current situation and future use of these platforms. For this we need to understand the full picture of opportunities available in the […]
Louisa Slavkova took part in The Teaching of History Workshop
Sofia Platform’s Executive director, Louisa Slavkova, took part in The Teaching of History Workshop on February 21-23 2020. The workshop was organized by the The Ratiu Forum, a collaboration between LSE IDEAS and the Ratiu Democracy Centre. Among other panellists on the workshop were Prof. Christopher Coker (UK), Prof. Slobodan Markovich (Serbia), Wojciech Przybylski (Poland), […]
Transition Dialogue 2019 – 2021. Sofia meeting.
Apart from the numerous events Sofia Platform has organized locally around the 10th November to raise awareness on celebrating 30 years since the beginning of transition from communism, we gathered our partners from Croatia, Germany, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine for the second meeting in the context of the project Transition Dialogue (TD) here in […]
We are remembering November 10’th with series of events
We are celebrating the 30’th anniversary of the beginning of democratic transition with series of events. 90’s stand-up – 10.11.2019, 20.30, Книгата (The Book) This year we will be celebrating the 10’Th of November in a different, more interesting way. The first event that we dedicate to the anniversary of 1989, will put the transition […]
New paper: ‘The generation of transition in Eastern Europe – a closer look’
Our team is happy to present our new paper – ‘The generation of transition in Eastern Europe – a closer look’. The paper was first presented on the international conference on the topic held in Sofia last year. Is there a generation of transition in Eastern Europe and if so, what are its values and attitudes […]
NECE Conference on Civic Education in Glasgow – Call for projects
Confronting Inequalities! The Role of Citizenship Education NECE Conference 2019, 24 – 27 October, Glasgow Technology Innovation Center (TIC), Strathclyde University Registration is open now! Please register here. Read more: http://www.bpb.de/veranstaltungen/netzwerke/nece/ NECE 2019 is proposing to discuss how the many forms of inequality – class, income, gender, race, ethnic origin, talent and geography – are affecting the rights […]
An Incredible Year Came To An End
Dear friends and colleagues, Smaller organizations often struggle to tell their story. There is always something more important to do, like actually engaging with the people we work with. And they have been many in what was quite an intense year. Here is a short story of our encounters in 2018 and of some of […]
“The Generation of Transition in Eastern Europe: A Generation of Uncertainty – a Generation of Distrust?” – Preparatory Workshop, Berlin 24 September 2018
After a few months of desk research and more than 49 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the Generation of Transition from Russia to Poland, we are happy to announce that we are a step closer to publishing a report on values, attitudes and patterns of engagement of young adults in Eastern Europe. It is meant […]
A Summer School Transforms Attitudes about Bulgaria’s Socialist Past
Martin, Bilyana, and Adelina were among 24 high school and college students from all over the country who spent a week in late June in the town of Belene, on the banks of the Danube, to learn more about the history of Bulgaria between 1944 and 1989. The past “came alive” for them when they […]