17th Children’s Roma Festival Open Heart POSTPONED!

Probably many of you have already guessed. Others may have hoped to have an autumn festival for the first time. Honestly, at some point we were hoping too. Unfortunately with great dissatisfaction we are obliged to announce that due to the extraordinary situation and changing circumstances around the pandemic COVID-19 festival “Open Heart” is postponed and for the first year since its inception Center Amalipe will not organize it.

The Open Heart Festival has been organized for 16 consecutive years. It traditionally includes about 2,000 students of different ethnic backgrounds from all over the country and abroad, included in the groups on “Folklore of ethnic groups – Roma folklore” or in extracurricular activities aimed at educational integration. Each school presents a program lasting up to 5 minutes.

The presented program includes elements of traditions, crafts, fairy tales and music folklore, history, way of life and culture of the Roma ethnic group in the context of the national Bulgarian culture and shows the connection and common elements between the culture of different ethnic groups in Bulgaria. In parallel with the stage program within the Festival always is organized end a Plein Air of extracurricular activities aimed at educational integration, in which each school can present its activities in the form of an exhibition, studio, posters and other materials that students have made during of the school year or work out on site.

All this will happen again in 2021, when, hopefully, everything will be calm and safe for children.

We miss you and we can’t wait for the time to come again for the colorful and smiling meetings with students from all over the country.

Until then, let’s recall some sunny moments from last year: