site.btaVice President Popova Meets Bulgarian Community in Malaga

Vice President Popova Meets Bulgarian Community in Malaga

Malaga/Sofia, April 13 (BTA) - Vice President Margarita Popova
met with members of the Bulgarian community in Malaga, the press
service of the President's Office said on Monday. Popova is on
a working visit to Spain from April 12 to 15.

Several thousands of Bulgarians, living and working in this
Spanish city, have set up four associations and the Rodina
[Homeland] Bulgarian Sunday School, the first ever such
establishment in Andalucia. Over 50 Bulgarian children study
Bulgarian language, history and geography in the school, which
has been operational for three years now.

"Away from our relatives and homeland, we decided to devote our
efforts to something valuable and sustainable in time. We set up
a school because we are lost without knowledge," the School
Headmaster Gulubina Purvanova said. "We have gathered to mark
Easter in an untraditional way. Only people like you, who are
away from Bulgaria, can realize what it means to be together on
Easter. I know that you think a lot about Bulgaria and work hard
to preserve our traditions," Popova said in her address.

She extended special gratitude to Miguel Rueda, Director f the
Cultural House in Malaga, who has provided premises for the
school and works actively with the Bulgarian organizations. The
expatriate Bulgarians raised a number of issues, related to
their pension rights, dual citizenship and the possibility for
financial support to the Bulgarian schools abroad before Popova
and the representative of the State Agency of Bulgarians Abroad,
accompanying her. Petranka Kostadinova, Chair of the
Malaga-Bulgaria Association, was decorated with the Honorary
Badge of the Agency.