Новини

For three days Veliko Tarnovo was conquered by songs, dances and so many children’s smiles that made even the rainy clouds vanish and the sun rise again. The Twelfth Children Roma Festival “Open Heart” organized by Center “Amalipe” with the support of Municipality of Veliko Tarnovo and the Trust for Social Achievement brought together more than 1800 children, teachers and parents form different ethnicities. From 5^th to 7^th June the children came together in Marno pole park to show that when we are together we can “be better to each other”.

The Community Development Center from Strazhitsa, who had been preparing for the Festival for a couple of months started the festival program with presentation of “Kana Gedzhesi” ritual, Indian and Spanish dances. They were immediately followed by the colorful rhythms of the Russian Roma romances presented by Primary School “Anton Strashimirov” from Bohot. Yulia, one of the participants, showed that on the stage she is as talented as active she was during the great camp of school parliaments Center Amalipe had organized for the schools working within the Program “Every student can be a winner” (financed from TSA) in Sliven two months ago. There was a bunch of various genres, styles and scenic attitudes. The most regular participants in the Festival have shared that every year the Festival becomes more colorful, motley and diverse. From the first day the little talents from “Children world” Kindergarten - Gorna Oriahovitsa and the 4-years old Maria became undisputed favorites of the audience. She and the three years old Alex from Zlataritsa who was playing on the drums virtuoso, were the youngest participants in the edition of the Festival this year.

The diversity of colors, costumes, songs, dances and original theater plays has not ceased even for a moment during the three days of the Festival when more than 150 groups (schools, high schools, centers for community development and youth groups) showed their talents. A lot and unique performances we saw on the stage. They made us dive deep into the culture of the different Roma groups and different ethnicities: to feel the customs of the MilletRoma, to see how the bear is a member of the family in the Rudari group and way of living (of course the bear brought by the youth voluntary club for tolerance in Burgas wasn’t real even though it was really close to it), what kind of wisdom contains the Roma, Bulgarian and Turkish fairy folklore, how close and different at the same time the musical rhythms in Roma, Bulgarian and Turkish folklore are, the eternal magic of Russian-Roma romances and the seductive rhythm of “Bubamara”, how fast the legs might move while dancing “Chichovoto choro”, to enjoy Indian dances and the amazing voice of Tomas – the Roma Pavarotti, who made us happy with the song “O, sole mio” and to see how students and young people today turn their desire to dance into modern rhythms and popular melodies… This is why it wasn’t  an easy task to select the group to be awarded with the Prize of the Municipality of Veliko Tarnovo. The award was assigned to “Hristo Botev” Primary School of Stamboliyski not only because of the unique performance “Ice and Fire” they presented, but also because of their entire work during the year – active participation of teachers and students from school parliaments and the interesting Stand of tolerance, they had organized during the campaign “Let’s be better to each other”.

The other big attraction of the Festival was the corners with the creative workshops which contributed to the diversity of the festival program. Students and teachers from “St. Cyril and Methodius” Primary School of Cherna gora again astonished the participants with the skills for a couple of minutes with varnish and other materials to create real masterpiece of art. The group from “Paisiy Hilendarski” High School of Varbitsa managed to capture the magic of stones, drawing on them bizarre forms, plants, birds… The group from “Vasil Levski” school of Karadzhovo was adding to the atraction creating art from nothing. We can’t point out all the great workshops we have seen during these three days: walking around the park “Marno pole”, everyone was captured by the kids with colorful hats from the school in Cherventsi, from the decoupage workshop of Vidrare, Goliamo Novo and others, form the craft nooks, prepared by the Centers for Community Development from Pavlikeni, Etropole, Biala Slatina, Strazhitsa, Knezha also with the participation of the youth voluntary groups to the Centers. They have showen that there is continuity and the traditions are still alive, which does not confront with the modernization of the community. Because the festival has gathered not just those who are most talented in different arts, but exactly those who apart from being gifted with their talent have put also enough efforts during the year to show that “everyone can be a winner” and that everyone is as bigger as his/her dreams are. Maybe this was the little rock that not just turns over the car, but also helps you to lift the pile of rocks which carefully, patiently with persistence you have built during the years exactly as much as you need so you can climb over the other side of the wall. This is why our smiles were getting wider after every school, which was in a hurry to share “We have great results from the external exams. This year we do not have poor grades. This year we extend our results at external exams with a grade…”. And all this schools in which the conditions are not easy, which have managed to jump over the wall and to climb the mountain, give us the strength and confidence to continue with the conviction that we are on the right path and before we even take a breath after we sent the participants in this year Festival, to begin preparing the next one – so we are waiting for you from 3th until 5^th of June 2016. The hour and the place are well known.

We are waiting for you and thank you for giving us so much sun and mood for a whole year ahead!

PS: The words are not enough to give you an exhaustive picture of all the emotions, smiles and mood… This is why maybe the photos in our facebook group Amalipe – Veliko Turnovo will give you a small hint about that…