Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

Bulgarian Red Cross volunteers – the humane “soldiers” with a mission to serve society

Photo: BGNES

Volunteering is our organization’s greatest strength, says Academician Hristo Georgiev, chairman of the Bulgarian Red Cross, BCR. Despite the quarantine, we are currently feeding 320,000 Bulgarians with funds from a European programme. We do this via 300 points where there are 9,000 volunteers constantly at work, taking food to the people in need, people who are sick or disabled. Take the latest example - the drivers at the Bulgaria-Turkey border – dozens of BRC volunteers gave out food to the people stuck there, Hristo Georgiev said for Focus news agency, and urged the public to become volunteers and take part in fund-raising campaigns, but also in blood drives. 


After a state of emergency was introduced in the country in mid-March the BRC volunteers added one more vital assignment to their mission – to deliver food and medicines to elderly people who live alone, to the disabled in different towns and villages across the country.

Requests for a visit are made by telephone, then the volunteers take down the list of items the people need and go to stores and pharmacies to buy them. The help they need comes in time and there are hundreds of Bulgarians relying on volunteers to survive at this difficult time.

In the town of Shumen there are around 60 volunteers always ready to go to the address of the people in need.

Tsvetan Gerassimov and Betina Belcheva are among the youngest Bulgarian Red Cross volunteers. Here is what they said in an interview for Radio Shumen:

I have been a volunteer with the Bulgarian Red Cross since the age of 14, i.e. for 4 years, Betina Belcheva says. I think that there comes a point when anyone will need help and there is someone else capable of giving that help. Anyone can do good if they want to, of course.

Volunteering is also means prioritization. Top of the list is education, and Betina and Tsvetan only go to BRC headquarters when they are done with their academic assignments.

We ought to help ourselves instead of sitting around waiting for the state to do something, says 18-year old Tsvetan Gerassimov from Shumen. That was my own motive to help, because times are difficult not just for us but for the state as well. People must stay home and we have to help them do that by restricting the times they have to go out. At times like these we have to unite more than ever. The Bulgarian Red Cross takes care to keep volunteers completely safe. Our safety comes first, before we even start going to people’s homes. Every day we are given masks, gloves, BRC distinctive markings.

Edited by Gergana Mancheva

Photos: BTA, BGNES and private library


Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

The lack of political direction and priorities empowers the administration

“Civil servant is not a dirty word” – with these words, civil servants organized a protest in front of the Council of Ministers building at the beginning of April. The reason was the fact that salaries in public administration had dramatically fallen..

updated on 6/12/24 12:15 PM
Facebook /Faculty of Law of Sofia University

The language of European law is the basis of the oldest specialized master's program in Bulgaria

In the midst of this year's student candidate campaign, the question what the most desired major at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski” would be, sounds like a rhetorical one. In the past four years, the undisputed number one..

published on 6/11/24 1:08 PM

Bulgaria has voted! Where are we heading to now?

Election fatigue, extremely low voter turnout (just over 30%), more young people at the polls and a fragile, barely perceptible hope for stability and political normality. This is how we can describe the past election Sunday for..

published on 6/10/24 4:11 PM