site.btaNearly 120,000 Young Bulgarians Indebted, Private Enforcement Agents Report

Nearly 120,000 young Bulgarians are indebted and respondents in enforcement proceedings, private enforcement agent Stanimira Danova said here on Monday.

The Bulgarian Chamber of Private Enforcement Agents (BCPEA) reports that debtors aged 18 to 20 number 4,000, those in the 20-25 age group are 36,000, and those up to 30 exceed 80,000, Danova said.

The Chamber has initiated a National Campaign for Personal Finance and Credit Management: Key Rules and Informed Decisions.

In Varna, the campaign was launched on Monday at the local Alexander S. Pushkin Foreign-Languages Secondary School with a lecture in financial literacy conducted by Danova and Daniela Petrova-Yankova. Yankova explained to BTA that training is available on request and schools in both the city and the region have shown interest. The private enforcement agents who deliver the training will respond to all requests.

The lectures target secondary school pupils (aged 17-19) because part of them have already reached adulthood, Danova specified. The focus is on personal budgeting, credit products and debt management. The young people are informed of ways to handle their personal money and financial instruments, how to find useful information to enable them to make adequate decisions. They learn about the functions of private enforcement agents and the role of the court as an adjudicator in civil disputes.

The BCPEA's initiative is implemented with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science, Denitsa Nenova of the Regional Education Department told BTA. In her words, this is the first organized training in finance and is very useful for children because this subject is taught at specialized schools but is covered in less detail except in classes in civic education but without practical orientation. In her opinion, the initiative finely complements the legal literacy syllabi that have been taught for several years now to secondary- and primary-school pupils. She recalled that the Varna Regional Education Department is partnering with the District Court and the Regional Court, and will shortly conclude an agreement with the District Prosecution Office and the Bar Association. "The important thing is to meet children with working professionals, so that they should regard institutions as tangible rather than imaginary," Nenova added.