Considering the importance and need for a social rights NGO network in Bulgaria, the Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation (IRBF) was registered and research work was carried out to identify the needs of this network. One year later, we can look back with pride at the progress made so far.

IRBF team

IRBF has succeeded in creating a reliable team, founded by Chris Bailey, and managed by Christina Haralanova. The team was joined for a few months by two Dutch students in Information Management from Deventer, Holland - Maartje Vroljik and Michel Willemsen, who performed invaluable research on the social NGO sector in Bulgaria.

Recently, Tanya Georguieva, a young and ambitious Law and Economics student, started to work as a trainee the IRBF project. Mathieu Lutfy, a young graduate from the Sherbrook University in Quebec, Canada arrived in May 2003 and joined IRBF as a volunteer. Mathieu implemented some of his ideas related to ICTs and social movements within the organisation.

In the last 12 months, despite the limited funds, IRBF has grown progressively. We are now working with a growing number of international and Bulgarian partners, preparing and seeking funding for a wide range of joint projects designed to assist the growth and viability of the social NGO sector in Bulgaria.

Projects

1. Information needs and use of Internet by the social NGOs in Bulgaria (September 2002 - January 2003) - a 5 months internship project, done by two Dutch students in Information Management called Maartje Vroljik and Michel Willemsen. The project became possible with the assistance of the Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" within the EU programme called Leonardo da Vinci.
2. Social Rights Bulgaria website - creation of an online network for the Bulgarian social movements (since May 2003) Based on the needs research, done by the Dutch students, and the awareness of a need for such a platform for use by the Bulgarian NGOs, a website called Social Rights Bulgaria was started.
3. IRBF became a training partner in the project "Media for Human Rights" of ABBRO - The Association of Bulgarian Broadcasters. Within the project, Christina Haralanova led two trainings in "Media participation in the protection of human rights and work with NGOs" for journalists from national and regional radionstantions. One of the trainings was in Sofia (19-20.04.2003), and the other one - in the countryside (14-15.06.2003)

Activities

 May 1, 2002 - Arising from the work of the European Internet Rights Project a meeting was held in Brussels, involving leading international representatives from international social NGOs and unions. The idea for starting an Internet Rights Bulgaria NGO was discussed and supported.

 August 22, 2002 - Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation is officially registered in the Sofia City Court.

 September 14-15, 2002 - Internal team-building training of the IRBF team and the Dutch interns in Koprivshtitsa, Bulgaria.

 November 29-30, 2002 - Study visit of IRBF staff to Veliko Turnovo for a meeting with local social NGOs. As a result, good contacts with possibilities for future cooperation on the Social NGO Network project were established. This was the final part of a number of meetings held with representatives of social NGOs from different social areas, aiming to identify their current needs, possibilities and readiness for cooperation in the Social Rights Network Project.

 May 1, 2003 - Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation’s first anniversary

 July 4-6, 2003 - Christina Haralanova participated in the official founding of the Women’s information technologies transfer (WITT) Project in Zagreb, Croatia. IRBF became a Bulgarian partner for this project.

 November 2003 - the IRBF team has translated the SPIP content management system in order to be used by Bulgarian NGOs on the Social Rights Bulgaria Website.

International participation

June 2002 - IRBF staff participated in the ICANN meeting in Bucharest, where we held valuable meetings and made contacts with Bulgarian Members of Parliament and the Bulgarian media, as well as many international ones.

October 2002 - Chris Bailey gave a presentation on IRBF at the South Eastern Europe Conference on Policy and Cooperation in Telecommunications in Belgrade Oct 28-30 2002. We were amongst a number of organisations invited by the Serbian government to make presentations in a Thematic Session on the Role of Civil Society in the Creation of National ICT Policy and Strategy.

Summary of IRBF Presentation

January 21, 2003 - Internet Rights Bulgaria is a participant in a Round Table on: Free software in the State administration - European models.

April 29, 2003 - Internet Rights Bulgaria made a presentation at a 1-day workshop on Can there be a social movement informatics? at Leeds Metropolitan University.

May 2-3, 2003 - Chris Bailey participated in two workshop panels at the Davies Forum, this year organised around the subject of Digital Democracy, at the University of San Francisco.

November 12-16, 2003 - Christina Haralanova and Mathieu Lutfy participated to the European Social Forum in Paris for making a media coverage with the team of Digitall@Future. They organised a workshop about the Use of Information and communication technologies by the social movements, which produced a great interest by the participants.

December 10-14, 2003 - Christina Haralanova took part in the World Summit of the Information Society, which took part in Geneva, Switzerland, meeting some international IRBF partners and facilitating the Digit@all future media coverage by uploading all the articles on the Social Righs Bulgaria Website