Marta Metodieva
2023 IVLP Impact Award Project: Seven Trips For Seven DaysBulgaria
Marta Metodieva is a Latin teacher, translator (English and French), author and editor on a platform for human rights. She has PhD in History of Culture and strongly believes in interdisciplinary teaching as the best way to achieve a good education.
2023 IVLP Impact Award Project: Seven Trips for Seven Days
Through a summer educational trip to seven historical and sacred cities surrounding Sofia, 14 Ukrainian refugee children and 7 Roma children gained an accurate and positive understanding of Bulgaria’s culture, history and language. As a result of these trips, families of the Roma minority community in Bulgaria developed connections with various organizations willing to invest in Roma children’s education. This project model will develop into “Summer City Camps” to offer summer educational experiences to Ukrainian refugee children and Bulgarian minorities.
Marta was also a panelist for the IVLP Impact Awards Alumni Discussion Series panel on “Community Support for Ukraine," which you can read more about here.
"Thank you very much – you showed me how beautiful and interesting Bulgaria is and now it’s easier for me to take it as a second home." - Project Participant
2022 IVLP Impact Award Project: The Human Face of War - Refugees & Volunteers
The project brought together 25 up-and-coming directors, screenwriters, and editors to create 11 videos highlighting the stories of refugees in Bulgaria as well as of the volunteers assisting them. The videos highlighted the inadequate health care and bureaucracy, the lack of prospects for future integration, the impossibility for children to go to school, and the hostile attitude of more and more Bulgarians. The videos were widely promoted to the general public to garner sympathy and support from the government and the community.
The audio-visual products showed Bulgarians that the faces and voices of victims and survivors are not anonymous. They are vibrant, tender, caring and filled with love and gratitude. The videos have had 1,200 views since publication and continue to gain views each day.
See Marta's 2022 IVLP Impact Award project's videos here
"As a mother and a woman, while watching the movies, I was witnessing the increasing of the number of young female directors who want to tell stories about the feminine face of the war: the endless suffering, fear and fight of mothers who did their best to save their children. All this gave me that despite the remorseless war, the voices of women will be more loudly heard." - Film Director
IVLP Exchange Experience
Marta participated in the IVLP Project Countering Holocaust Distortion and Denial: The Role of New and Traditional Media in 2022, organized by the U.S. Department of State and Meridian International Center, in partnership with Global Minnesota, Global Ties Alabama, Cleveland Council on World Affairs, the U.S. Department of State Office of International Visitors program branch in New York City, International Citizen Diplomacy of Los Angeles and World Affairs Council – Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky.
Marta's exchange experience led her to develop her IVLP Impact Award Project: "My previous project was dedicated [to] the filming of the stories of Ukrainian refugees and Bulgarian volunteers who have helped them cope with the inhuman and extremely difficult situation they were put in after the Russian state invaded Ukraine last year. During the project I met with Ukrainian children who were doing their best to adapt to the new, strange and challenging position they found themselves in Bulgaria as survivors in a devastating war."
U.S. Communities Visited Virtually in 2022
Montgomery, AL; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC; Minneapolis, MN; New York City, NY; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH
"Putting all these things together, I’ve decided I’d like to do something special for these brave young persons, especially in the summer when everybody needs more happiness and interesting activities. " - Marta Metodieva
Country: Bulgaria
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