Waste Away Sunday 13th May

We had a lot of fun and cleared 40x60 litre bags of plastic and other waste from the edges of Srebarna Biosphere Reserve last weekend. A team of 40 volunteers comprised of students from Uri Gagarin highschool and the good people at World for All in Silistra, our close friends Luba and Kolyo from Srebarna Guesthouse and around 20 other people from our village including the Mayor of Srebarna Georgi Boev, Kolyo Mihof from the Bulgarian Academy of Science and Toshiiko Izawa from Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). We were also joined by 2 volunteers from the UK Christine and Ellie who are over here on University placements with Green Balkans at the Wildlife Rehabillitation and Breeding Centre in Stara Zagora, animal enthusiast Ekaterina Nikolova and the other local Brits Geoff and Debbie.




Waste Away Sunday 13th May

We followed this with a garden party and lunch back at Pelican Lake Guesthouse the headquarters of Srebarna Birding, where the Green Balkans volunteer students, ably assisted by our good friend and volunteer translator Ekaterina, made a presentation about their work in Stara Zagora after this Toshi(JICA) and Kolyo(BAS) ran a quiz with questions based on environmental issues, those students with the best scores got prizes, in fact there were enough prizes to ensure that everyone won something.












We then congregated on the village square for a few words from our friend Milena with the Mayor and the wonderful Luba, about the importance of good waste management.


This was followed by a live performance from Nasco Stefanov one of Bulgarias premier rock singers who kindly gave his time to promote our cause.
Our heartfelt thanks go to all involved in organising this event and of course to all participants. A special mention must go to Allyson and Brian from Birds of Bodrum www.kyteweb.net/birdsofbodrum who co-funded the event along with ourselves and JICA. The day was topped off when a flight of over 100 Dalmatian Pelicans flew directly over our house at the end of the afternoon. We joked that they had come to say thank you to us all for doing what we can to ensure the sustainability of their environment.