Project on capacity building project in partnership with Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (2018-2020)

The project built on the collaboration between the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) and NGO Organization Drom. In February 2017, before the initiation of the project, NGO Organization Drom and BHC signed a partnership agreement. Based on that, NGO Organization Drom became the only Regional Human Rights Hub for Northwest Bulgaria. The cooperation covers investigation of regional incidents of human rights abuses, cooperation with lawyers, legal consultation on cases of serious human rights abuses, advocacy cooperation before the local authorities on Roma issues.  The project “Capacity building for NGO Organization Drom”, funded by Open Society Foundations in fact, widens the framework of existing collaboration between the two NGOs by providing capacity building to Organization Drom staff and volunteers. Overall, BHC provided valuable support during the implementation of the project to NGO Organization Drom staff and volunteers in three areas: building the capacity to fundraise, engage in video advocacy and improve skills of staff and volunteers to deal with issues of human rights protection. The project was led by Ms. Donka Panayotova (chair of NGO Organization Drom), who worked on a voluntary basis (40 hours/monthly).

1. Fundraising capacity-building: NGO Organization Drom provided 10 participants for this training  - 3 staff persons and 7 volunteers. They gathered specific skills to engage in independent proposal writing before international donors (public and private grant-makers) as a means to carry out organization activities.
2. Media work/Video advocacy capacity-building: The campaign training was prepared in 2018 by Raya Raeva and Andrei Getov from BHC and conducted in 2019. It involved 10 participants from NGO Organization (4 staff and 6 volunteers). The aim of the training was to build capacity towards more effective campaigning and communication. 
3. Human Rights Protection – Dr. Krassimir Kanev, Chair of BHC, was invited on 25 July 2019 to provide paralegal skills training (one session in Vidin with 15 participants), while the second session in Sofia during November 20-22, 2019 visit included meetings of staff of BHC. NGO Organization Drom hired a part-time lawyer, who provided legal counselling and worked closely with BHC lawyers.