It is March 2012. The town of Harmanli gathers for a charity function organized by the mayor and the school. Over many months, students recycle materials and organize charity concerts to fundraise for their new Natural Science Center. We begin believing we can make our dream come true…to equip new laboratories in biology, chemistry, and physics the school has never had.

Our fundraising campaign made our project unique. With help from the entire community, we raised BGN 40,000 – an amount that seemed impossible at the start. America for Bulgaria Foundation generously donated an additional BGN 121,000 to the project.

Then something incredible happened. Thanks  to the new electronic microscopes, children began to act as discoverers. Now, morning through afternoon, students refuse to leave school and go home.

Science, language, and IT centers such as ours have sprung up around the country supported by the America for Bulgaria Foundation. Now, teachers and principals believe that, even in difficult times, they can dream big and create motivating learning environments for their students. The Foundation helps revamp science labs that had been neglected for years.

This is incredibly inspirational for the children. It is one thing to look at pictures of objects in a textbook.  It is quite another to discover scientific objects yourself – such as observing a fly’s leg under a microscope.  When children come in and out of classrooms smiling, it makes our hard work all worth it.

To view a documentary on the school: School of the Future

To learn more about Neofit Rilski Secondary School in Harmanli: Click Here