Dear Readers,
Business Academy for Starting Entrepreneurs (BASE) is the Foundation’s free entrepreneurship program equipping individuals with the tools to build small, family-owned companies — like Hristina’s patisserie, Lazar’s shirt-making workshop, and Neli’s hairdressing studio. Read their inspiring stories below.
BASE graduates also apply the skills they gain in the program in the preservation of traditional crafts, the provision of basic community services, and the pursuit of childhood dreams. Most of all, budding entrepreneurs create jobs and bring value to their communities!
No less uplifting are the stories of business veterans like Vania and Plamen, who provide mentorship and support to those who are just starting out.
Happy reading!
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Hristina Bayryakova wanted to throw her husband a special thirtieth birthday party. Little did she know that her efforts to make the perfect cake would be the foundation of a successful business.
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Lazar speaks enthusiastically about the challenge of making a good shirt, a passion inherited from his grandfather. He makes and sells custom dress shirts through his brand, Made Right.
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Neli Stoimenova likes a good challenge. This is how someone with a veterinary science and engineering background ended up requalifying to become a hairdresser and now runs her own beauty salon.
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Vania Minkova, from the Council of Women in Business, started her professional life wanting to improve machines, yet she could not escape her family calling and spent her entire career to date aiding the development of humans.
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Plamen Nikolov likes to joke that he is in the business of diffusing wellbeing. He is the executive director of Esseterre, the Bulgarian arm of the world’s largest producer of essential oils, dōTERRA.
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If You Still Need Convincing…
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No idea is too zany for Business Academy for Starting Entrepreneurs. Volunteer lecturers and mentors will help your business idea become the best version it can be. This delightful teaser is brought to you by the crew of Bulgarian information and comedy video platform Gospodari.com.
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Mariana Barakchieva gave up an engineering job in Switzerland for a life of pursuing mountain adventures and building her own sustainable clothing business in Bulgaria, with the help of BASE.
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Radenko Velinov comes from Bulgaria’s bean capital, Smilyan. He learned woodworking from some of Scotland’s great masters and brought back the lessons to his native land, hoping to revive traditional occupations in Smilyan.
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Leading international journalists will discuss the aspects of technology that enhance investigative journalism and offer new ideas to Bulgarian practitioners interested in advancing their work technologically at the first ever World Press Institute conference in Bulgaria.
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Stay safe,
Your friends at the America for Bulgaria Foundation
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