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Far from the homeland:

Sts. Cyril and Methodius School in Vancouver preserves the knowledge about Bulgaria alive for 30 years

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Photo: Sts Cyril and Methodis Bulgarian School in Vancouver

About 70,000 Bulgarians are currentingly residing in Canada, according to data from the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There are seven Bulgarian Sunday schools in the country. During the past 2023/2024 academic year, one of them - "St. St. Cyril and Methodius" in Vancouver celebrated its 30th anniversary. The school organized a number of events with the active participation of his students.

"We made a green school initiative for the children, with whom we went camping for two days, where they had the opportunity to merge with nature, play various games outside, plant lilac trees", - the teacher from the school, Vanya Alexieva, told Radio Bulgaria. "We have very nice memories and interest to do it again next year, even with children who do not come to school, for whom we hope it will act as a magnet and start coming in. I know that they, perhaps, prefer the comfort of home and find it difficult to follow their peers on the sixth day of the week in a place where they also have to study, but they might still try."


On the occasion of the anniversary, the children drew their self-portraits, inspired by paintings by Bulgarian painter Vladimir Dimitrov-Maistora The idea for this came from their art teacher Hristina Hristozova. And on May 25, a concert was held, at which former graduates of the school were also guests.


The Bulgarian children from Vancouver are collecting photos and doing interviews with former graduates of the school, which will be part of a film dedicated to the 30th anniversary of its founding. Nearly 90 people have been involved in the school's activities so far - some as teachers, some as administrators.

"For this task, we have the support of the Consulate General in Toronto, in the person of the Consul General of our country there - Ms. Velislava Panova. We received funding from Bulgaria and collected the interviews, and the film will be longer than we expected. It will be about an hour long, provided that much of the material in it was edited out."

Mrs. Alexieva has shared it will be broadcast at the opening of the new school year on September 14, which will appropriately crown the celebration of this important anniversary for the educational center and the Bulgarian community.


The school took its first steps in 1993, when in one of the high schools in the Canadian city of Burnaby, Bulgarian language classes began every Saturday.

In the period 1997 - 1998, the school's activities were suspended, and from 1999 it accepted students again under the leadership of Zdravka Slavenova, and the children's activities were held in public libraries and churches.


In August 2001, on the idea of ​​another compatriot - Violeta Decheva, the Bulgarian-Canadian Society of British Columbia was founded, under whose umbrella the school operates. With a short interruption, it existed until 2009, when it began work on the program of the Ministry of Education and Culture "Native Language and Culture Abroad", under the leadership of Viktor Nedelchev. From 2022, its director is Kalina Rangelova-Georgieva.

The number of students in the school is more or less the same, Mrs. Alexieva explains to us and clarifies:


"Last school year there were about 60 students. Over the years there were different waves of emigrants who came to Canada. The 90s was the biggest wave of emigrants, which continued until Bulgaria entered the EU. At the beginning, all the children in the school were from marriages between two Bulgarians and were born in Bulgaria. Later they started to be from mixed families, and today we have almost no Bulgarian children born in Bulgaria. This is interesting and gratifying, because for me the fact that this school is impressive continues its mission when the children do not even speak Bulgarian at home. There is clearly a need for them to know about their roots."

Vanya Alexieva admits that in some periods of the year she notices a significant change in the students' motivation to participate in Saturday classes.

"Of course, a lot depends on the family, but as a long-time teacher at the school, I would say that I can tell when grandma has come to help with the care. The child immediately begins to read better and narrate and remember the lessons. After the summer vacation, they tell interesting incidents and experiences from Bulgaria."


For others, however, who do not speak Bulgarian well and find it difficult to learn it, the school tries to ensure that the time spent in the classes is as pleasant as possible:

"Every Saturday, in addition to learning lessons, we play the game "Fast-Brave-Skillful" outside. We provide the children with a so-called hot lunch, which is ordered week by week and includes pizza, sushi and other dishes. We use this as motivation for the children - to come to school, to write down what we write or study in class, because lunch will soon come and it will be pizza."

We wish success to the students who will cross the threshold of the school this year as well!

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Photos: Sts Cyril and Methodius Bulgarian School in Vancouver, Canada


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