The Letters

By Roumen Ivanov

I have received many letters in my live. But these three that I am holding in my hand are among the most precious ones. They came in an ordinary envelope, but yet they are unusual. I knew that these letters were supposed to dome, but I didn’t expect that they would touch me so deeply. On a peace of cheap paper there were some lines written in an unsteady handwriting:

I AM WELL. I HAVE LEARNT
TO READ AND WRITE.
I THANK GOD FOR THIS.
WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU TO VISIT HERE. WE LOVE YOU.
MY NAME IS BOYAN.

I sit down for a while without being able to stop my tears. These letters are from those small, dirty children from the city of Krichim whom I met when our literacy program was beginning in the local Gypsy Church. Now, half a year later, they have written the very first letter in their life. The children’s teacher Bla-ga Raleva had gone with them to the post office and the children had closed the envelopes by themselves, glued the stamps and mailed the letters.
Many Gypsy children stop attending school after the second grade, having not learnt to read and write well enough. This summer our goal is to teach especially these children so that they can continue attending school.

The unknown “Sugar Factory” slum

In April we trained four teachers to begin literacy teaching in the local Gypsy Churches in two slums within the city of Sofia: in Hristo Botev , where we have been feeding children for over two years, and in the Sugar Factory slum.

Don’t try to find Sugar Factory on the map of Sofia. In addition to the the shabby inhabitants of the slum, only a few people have even seen this shanty village. Even fewer have ever gone far enough to cross the dirty, littered river that flows through the village. The small church built by an Evangelical congregation is the only sign of “outsiders”.

The young pastor of the congregation Dimitar Chakalov turned to us asking us to teach the children and also adults in this area. Two of the teachers who were trained will concentrate on teaching young women who have never attended school. We hope to be able to reach the most of the illiterate population of the Sugar Factory slum and to improve the future outlook in the entire village.