31 May 2024. Vanya Rizova, Regional Representative of the CPD for Veliko Tarnovo Region, attended the opening of the XIX Roma Children\'s Festival “Open Heart”, which has been held annually since 2003. The festival is organized by the Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance “Amalipe” with the assistance of Veliko Tarnovo Municipality.
More than 1000 students from all over the country took part in the festival, taking part in the “Ethnic Folklore-Romani Folklore” classes and in other interest activities aimed at educational integration in the school year 2023-2024. The aim of the festival is to preserve, develop and promote Roma culture and folklore, as well as to give children of different ethnicities the opportunity to express themselves and stimulate in them a lasting interest in the educational process as a whole.
The program included the presentation of songs and dances, festive customs and traditions of Roma, Bulgarians, Turks and other ethnic groups living in Bulgaria. The first day of the festival ended with a festive procession of all participants along the main street of Veliko Tarnovo.
On the same day, Vanya Rizova attended a round table on “Turning Hate Speech into Tolerance”, organized within the festival, held in the building of Veliko Tarnovo Municipality. The organizers presented the results of their survey on hate speech in social networks, as well as examples of good practices for counteracting it. Three short films against stereotypes by the Goethe Institute were presented to the participants in the round table, which carry messages about discrimination and stereotypical attitudes towards Roma from the past to today, as well as about the personal creative and social path of the filmmakers and the clash of their work with reality.
