Vyara Velikova: We want to cultivate young people's desire for sport and development
“We believe that sport develops discipline, high moral values and we want people who practice it to focus on things of value for their personal development. This is the mindset of the Foundation, to sow in the youth a desire for sports and development at the expense of the time they spend in front of digital devices.” This is what Vyara Velikova, Executive Director of the Sport in Bulgaria Foundation, told BGNES.
Velikova told more about the foundation and its activities. “Sport in Bulgaria Foundation is a young non-profit organization, its main mission is to support sport in Bulgaria. We support professional sport, but at the same time we work to implement projects in amateur and grassroots sport that develop healthy habits in young people. We started the activities of the Foundation by supporting the open water swimmer Tsanko Tsankov, the queen of Bulgarian chess Nurgyul Salimova, since the beginning of this year we have been partnering quite successfully with the ensemble and individual gymnasts, the basketball players from the club Septemvri 97, our latest partnership is with the sports club “Wrestling – Levski”. Our athletes are achieving outstanding success,” she said.
The organization’s next projects focus on grassroots and amateur sports. “We have a new partnership with the Friends of Sport Foundation, together with the Real Madrid Foundation to create a sports and social school for at-risk children, children from poor families. This will be the second such school in Bulgaria. We are also about to develop a large-scale platform for the digital impact that we and our children are all subjected to. The working name of the project is “Time Hunters”, stay tuned for news from us in this direction,” Velikova revealed.
“Support is very important, especially when it is timely. So is the evaluation and feedback from our collaborations. We are in constant contact with them and try from these conversations to identify their needs and accordingly be able to meet them. An example is our last cooperation with the sports club “Borba – Levski”, they told us that they need a bus to use for travel during competitions, because their bus is quite old and depreciated and the Foundation responded, we presented them with earmarked funds to purchase this bus. Another such example is the national boxing champion Vladimir Georgiev, whom the Foundation supported on purpose in connection with his preparation for his match with Juan Ruiz, which took place at the MaxFight gala evening at the beginning of last month. This, of course, is very much appreciated by them all,” she added.
In recent months, the Foundation has also organized side events, such as a meeting of Nurgül Salimova with students from 31 SUCHEM, a talk by Tsanko Tsankov with children from Levski’s Youth School and a meeting of the gymnasts with the actors from the Bulgarian Army Theatre. “I think these events are very important, not only for us, but also for the participants. Especially for children it is extremely important when successful athletes meet them, tell them about their path, how they got to these successes. It actually motivates them a lot. They told us that these events remain a lifelong memory for them, a great pleasure. It’s important to have a variety of initiatives to support the kids, to get them fired up, to get them ambitious to get in the gym and do more sports. We made a collaboration between Bulgarian sport and Bulgarian culture in the face of our national rhythmic gymnastics athletes, together with their coaches, we visited the Bulgarian Army Theatre, where we attended the production of “The Iron Candelabrum”, it was a very pleasant and fruitful evening. We plan to continue organizing this type of events in the future, stay tuned for more interesting initiatives from us.”
To conclude, Velikova wished all Bulgarian athletes success in the Olympic year 2024.
“I am expecting success, specifically for the girls in the ensemble and the individual athletes that we support, they are training very seriously for the Olympics in Paris, they are making a serious effort and I believe they will be appreciated. In Paris I expect them to achieve serious success. All Bulgarian athletes have chances to perform at a good level and even to get on the podium.”
Source: BGNES