For the second consecutive year the Foundation organised summer educational activities for children from Rousse and the region. In 2002 the Academy was realised with the aid of the “Open Society” Club - Rousse within its “Charity Fund - Rousse and the financial aid of “Charles Stewart Mott” Foundation - USA.
The first “school” day of the Academy was formally opened on July 8th. The initiative involved 60 children from Rousse aged 10 - 15. They were selected by social workers, educationalists and the Foundation team according to criteria including social needs and achievements in school and out-of-school activities. The aim was to provide possibilities for interesting and useful extracurricular activities combined with entertainment and games during the children’s leisure time. The project involved training in five “classrooms” in the fields of arts, entertaining mathematics, computer linguistics, chess and modern ballet. The classes covered 10 days 4 hours daily. The Foundation provided lunch to participants as well as season tickets for this period and all necessary materials and equipment for the classes. In each “classroom” the children worked with experts in the relevant field, who gave their expertise free.
The “Mathematics” class was taught by Antoaneta Blajeva, teacher in the Textile Vocational School, and here the students worked with logical problems, space and plane figures. In the “Computer Linguistics” classroom the director of the Rousse school of Computer Linguistics and lecturer in the Rousse University “Angel Kunchev” Ilyana Raeva taught the young talents how to decode texts, code information and translation correlates. Rostislav Raev - European champion of solution of chess problems and master of sports with a Bulgarian coefficient ЕLО 2260, instructed the young chess players in theory and the game particulars, gave them training sessions. The “Arts” lessons facilitated by the Foundation grantees Lidya Terzieva - under-graduate in the Rousse University “Angel Kunchev”, speciality “Enginee-ring Design” and Alexandra Gabrov-ska - artist student in the 10th grade of the Secondary Arts School “Professor Veselin Stoyanov”. The children painted still-lifes, landscapes, fugure compositions, plastics, portaits, comics and cartoons. In the “Modern Ballet” studio Natalia Tomova, director of the Modern Ballet Formation “Mirage” in the Municipal Centre for Culture and Arts instructed the young dancers in the hip-hop and disco styles and they all composed their own dance.
One of the days was devoted to an excursion to the Ethographic Museum “Etura” - Gabrovo, where the children visited authentic craftsmen workshops, old Bulgarian houses and for a day opened “green” studios and workshops.
“The Summer Children’s Academy 2002” finished with a performance held in the garden of the “Bistra & Galina” Hotel attended by all participants, parents, friends, sponsors and journalists. The children from each “classroom” presented what they had learned and demonstrated their achieve-ments with specially preparted presenta-tions and games with the audience. In the final part each child received a certificate as a participant in the Academy and presents from the organisers. The greatest surprise, though, was the huge cake which was enjoyed by all participants and guests.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the team of the “Open Socity” Club - Rousse and personally to Ms. Lora Sarkisian for their cooperation, all social workers who made it possible to recruit and select the children and personally to Ms. Katya Petrova for her invaluable help; “Grifon” Gallery, who provided materials for plastic art and an expert to instruct the children - Mr. Peter Doichinov; “Luchesara - 91” Private Company who provided part of the prize fund; NGO “Evrointellect”, “Ivan Vazov” elementary school and the Municipal Centre for Culture and Arts” for the provision of the venue for the classes.

This initiative started in 2001 and was further developed and received its complete realisation. The students then in the 6th grade of the School of Mathematics “Baba Tonka” wrote Christmas essays and stories after their class teacher Ms. Anka Spasova had inspired them with the idea. The Foundation team liked the works of the young authors, created with genuine children’s originality and flight of imagina-tion, and decided to publicise them for the larger community. That was how the idea was born and further accomplished by Darik Radio, who created the programme “The Fantasies of 6th a class” , where every morning since the beginning of December 2001 until Christmas the children read their pieces. The initiative was so well accepted and the enthusiasm of the participants was so catching that we decided to go on. Every morning from the beginning of December 2002 the best works were transmitted on the Radio while two of them were dramatised and presented the Rousse radio in the national emission on Christmas itself. With the help of sponsors and our joint efforts the “Christmas Magic” book was published containing all 30 Christmas fantasies of the already grown-up 7th graders. The children themselves and the team of the “Bistra & Galina” Hotel-Foundation undertook the distribution of the book. The funds raised made it possible for the young authors to help the publication of the school bulletin and make a small gift to themselves and 30 participants in the “Summer Children’s Academy”, who had achieved the best results, to go on a one-day excursion to Arbanasi, Veliko Turnovo. 7th a class of the Schools of Mathema-tics “Baba Tonka” were the Foundation volunteer team in the Christmas card cha-rity campaign.

Partial funding of the project “Our Shared Home” of the Association for Bulgarian Culture “St. Dimitrij Basar-bovski” - Rousse, comprising five studios for creative development of children and young people in fine arts, applied arts and crafts, music, library-editorial board, carnival workshop