Visiting places of tolerance

It was another fruitful day. We started our journey from St Sofia Church where we read the Edict of Toleration, issued by Galerius 1700 years ago. It put an end to the persecution of Christians and promoted religious tolerance. On our way to the next important place of tolerance, the United Teddy Bears Exhibition, we visited museums and galleries and admired the beauty of our capital. It turned out that the exhibition travels round the world under the same slogan as ours, Art for Tolerance. We found many of the symbols, we drew yesterday, painted on the bears and that made us feel part of the world campaign for tolerance. The exhibits at the National Museum of History introduced our guests to the past of our lands and the journey to our next stop, the Bell Complex of the Peace Banner Assembly, seemed like a bridge from past through present and into the future. There our team members rang the bells to join the sound made by thousands of children before them and raise their voices in support of peace, tolerance and friendship.

Day Three, 9th May

Today was the most important event of the 1st meeting. Students were given the opportunity to express their ideas of tolerance in various forms of artistic expression but mainly drawing pictures,graffiti and symbols of tolerance. This "drawing for tolerance event" centred around three main activities :
a) Diversity+Trust=Tolerance . Students from St Sofrony Vrachanski made drawings,pictures and symbols of tolerance under the guidance of their teachers Nikolai Rogachev, Minka Kirova, Nelly Lapkova, Katya Simeonova , Lora Miteva, Sheni Uzunova and many other primary school teachers;
b) joint teams of Bulgarian, Polish and Hungarian T.I.M.E. members painted and assembled a mural puzzle;
c)team members drew graffiti to present their ideas of tolerance but many students from the school also joined in .
The "tolerance" dance performed by Bulgarian team members, the hand prints and the puppet show performance increased thoughtfulness about different minority groups and sensitivity towards intolerance and promoted intercultural dialogue.All the activities had a deeply symbolic meaning and offered a good opportunity to instill tolerance to cultural, religious, ethnic and socio-economic differences.

DAY TWO

On the second day we paid respect to the past and present, visiting museums. e.g. the Air Museum / Museum of Aviation/ and building up on religious and ethnic tolerance. We took our guests-Roman Catholics and Protestants to the second biggest monastery in Bulgaria - Bachkovo Monastery. They also admired Orthodox icons and Bulgarian crafts. Then we visited Asenovgrad, a town, famous for the peaceful coexistence of ethnic minorities and hence called the Little Jerusalem.

Diary of the meeting in Bulgaria

Day One

      Day One was full of emotion .Teams met for the first time. They have all prepared well to present their ideas of tolerance, their schools , countries and towns, the work done so far and most of all their readiness to beat intolerance and prejudice.

Arrival Day

The Polish and Hungarian team have arrived for the first T.I.M.E meeting in Bulgaria.

The lobby is ready,too

Last preparations

The walls are ready for graffiti and murals.