Todor Todorov
Principal of Lyuben Karavelov Primary School in Yambol
My name is Todor Todorov. I am the principal of Lyuben Karavelov Primary School in Yambol. I want to thank you for your efforts in creating a comfortable and cozy environment in our classrooms, I am very impressed with your photo wallpaper solutions and the beautiful colors used in our corridors, lounges and recreation areas.
A big thank you to the LightSource charity organization for the “I Love My School” project donation, which made our school a pleasant and attractive place for students.
The motivational messages of the photo wallpaper are affecting students in a positive way, a good proof of that is their increased motivation and overall satisfaction and their desire to improve their quality of life. The “Children and Flowers” project made students more responsible and respectful of nature and the environment around them.
I am greatly impressed by your enormous gift and ability to create a comfortable and relaxing learning environment by decorating individual visual projects for our classrooms, corridors and lobbies. What you did in our school touched students deeply, it improved their mental and physical wellbeing and helped them relax as if they were immersed in a natural habitat. This process helped to improve their creative potential by inspiring love for learning and respect for knowledge.
I thank God that I met you and together we created this comfortable and aesthetically pleasing environment that helps students with their learning. Due to this new environment students also feel a lot more confident in themselves, their academic results are markedly better and they are not afraid to dream big anymore. I would like to thank you for this yet again.
The work on the project “I love my school” has also helped improve the relationships in our team. Our teamwork helped us find the right solutions to the tasks and their best realisation and the relationship between us is now a lot more healthy than ever before. Following our teachers’ enthusiasm, students and their parents also joined the project.
Thank you very much for donating your funds to the Bulgarian schools – they are a temple of literature, values and traditions.
Slavcho Tashkov – School principal
Director”H.Botev” Primary School – Dolni Tsibar, Bulgaria
It has been one year since LightSource Charity completed their “I Love My School” project and its results are more than beneficial for our students, their parents and, in general, all the people in our village Dolni Tsibar, who have experienced the “magic” also known as the dream come true …
Thanks to the new interior vision of our school, our students are now more relaxed, have a sense of beauty and aesthetics, feel proud and equal with their peers from the more urban schools. The new interior environment has also had some beneficial effects on their emotional stability.
There is an increase of student intake of about 15%, which is a very positive change for teachers and employees alike.
There is a marked increase in success rate as well as motivation in both learning and teaching as part of the education processes in the school – precisely because children are more productive when they are surrounded by a calm, homely and secure environment.
Due to the joint project activities, trust and friendship between teachers and school staff and the parents in the community have also increased.
Stress and fatigue among students are much lower than before, because children feel the school environment as “their own”!
There is a positive change and rearrangement in the students’ value system, namely from daily contact with the positive affirmations that surround them throughout the school building.
Teachers say that students actively refer to and use the learning information used on the wallpaper both in class and outside.
Thanks to the project “I love my school”, we have endured positive influence in every way and in every direction. On the one hand, we have managed to build a bridge between teachers and students and on the other, between the school community and parents. This is indeed wonderful, and all this combined with the unrecognizable interior change and the magical look of the school becomes just one … THE DREAM COME TRUE !
Slavcho Tashkov – School principal, Director
Assen Alexandrov
Principal of 51 Elisaveta Bagryana school
I am Assen Alexandrov and I am the Principal of 51 Elisaveta Bagryana school. I am very happy that the project “I love my school” was completed in my school. Together with the LightSource charity organization we created a wonderful interior project to positively improve our learning environment and bring with beauty, homeliness and harmony to our institution. The results are already in place because there is a marked increase of interest of both parents and students in our school. is increasing and more students want to be part of the magic of our beautiful school. More and more students want to be part of the magic of our beautiful school. I feel proud because the project “I love my school” has significantly raised my school’s reputation and prestige and created a truly inspiring harmonious environment that motivates our students to achieve success, follow their dreams and be responsive to the surrounding environment in school. Teachers and students are proud to share with others that they work and/or study in my school and this makes me a happy and content principal.
Veselin Stefanov
Deputy Principal of 51 Primary School “E. Bagryana “in Sofia
My name is Veselin Stefanov and I am the Deputy Principal of 51 Primary School “E. Bagryana “in Sofia. As a project manager of the “I love my school,” project, I followed the whole process and took an active part in its design and delivery. I am proud of what we have achieved through making the right choice of colors and images for each classroom. At first I thought that we would simply be given photo wallpaper, but it turned out that instead, we were facing a one-year long project. As part of this charity work, we were given an interior design and also custom designed wallpaper was especially made for our school. All teachers had the opportunity to choose relevant images and words that would be included in the photo wallpaper. These images seem to liven up each room and give it its own unique appearance, while the positive thoughts and affirmations bring students into another world, a better world. A world in which they can dream, create and strengthen their self-esteem.
After one and a half years since the project was launched, and there is not a single mark on the walls or the wallpaper. We have established that the project has taught the children to be responsible and respectful towards the physical environment in which they reside. Students feel like the school is their home and lovingly want to take care of it. This project has taught me and my colleagues how to properly work with colors, shapes and objects and how to position them all in harmony with each other within the school space, so that we feel comfortable and relaxed in it. In the past, the furniture and the decorations in the classrooms were simply randomly placed without a sense of space and color, and I remember that environment being a burden to the educational process. The old information boards hang heavy on the walls and created chaos and confusion in our school. Now, after the positive interior change of the project “I love my school”, students and teachers alike are happy to attend classes because there is a feeling of space, lightness and harmony in our school!
Rumyana Tropcheva
Principal of “Nikolay Petrini” School – Yambol
The project “I love my school” gave us wings!
My name is Rumyana Tropcheva and I am the principal of “Nikolay Petrini” School – Yambol. I am very happy and proud that we have been approved for a donation from LightSource, and the project “I Love My School” has led to the creation of a beautiful and inspiring interior design that included photo wallpaper in all rooms, corridors and foyers. I was impressed that through the first stage of inquiry a thorough research study was conducted to determine the expectations and desires of both students and teachers. LightSource tapped into the very dreams and hopes of our organisation and acted accordingly. As a result, the theme of the project “I Can Fly” was conceived. In all the photo-art that our designers created for us individually, there are elements of flight – birds, ladybirds, butterflies, cosmos, clouds, pilots, rockets etc.
So, over the last two years, this carefully thought out project has made every corner of the school an attractive, inspiring and homely place for our students.
I would like to share with you the results of the renewed interior environment:
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The school has become a desirable territory for students. The first stage of the project was realized in the summer of 2017. The number of students in the previous school year 2016/2017 was 403. In 2017/2018 the number of student intake increased to 440 and in 2018/2019 our students already numbered 503. This is 25% increase if compared to the time before the project was launched. These figures are a good proof of how important the colorful and inspiring learning environment is to students.
2. The school has become a desirable place of work for many young teachers.
We are proud of the fact that during this academic year, four young teachers aged between 28 and 35 started working with us with great enthusiasm. What they said was that they feel inspired by the new interior environment and they are proud that this is their workplace and that it is their pleasure to come to work.
3. Our students academic performance has also increased.
At the national external examinations in the 4th and 7th grade last year, our students showed an increase in the average attainment of the main subjects. Children say they do not want to leave school, even after completing their primary education after grade 7.
4. Students discipline and self-awareness also improved. The children participated with great enthusiasm in our art workshops, where they created furniture for the foyers out of old recycled materials. They planted flowers and turned the foyers into recreation areas during the school breaks. They made pots of olive boxes, decorated them and planted flowers to purify the air in their favorite school. This brought them to become responsible and caring owners of the school property.
5. Our initial goal when starting the work on this project was to create a unique and original learning environment. An interior that reflects the spirit of our teachers and students. A place, where all staff would align our priorities, namely to prepare our students for the real life and to make them free, educated and strong people. And that’s exactly what we have achieved!
There are many positive outcomes of the “I love my school” project, and while some are more obvious, others are much more discrete, huddled in the thoughts and hearts of our younger and older students. The beauty and harmony around us educates us and makes us better and more creative. They give us strength and courage to fly on the wings of our dreams. They make our school a territory of unlimited possibilities!
Savina Ignatova
Principal of P. Hilendarski primary school, Jeleznitza
We are a school in the small picturesque village of Zeleznitsa, which chose the interesting topic “Five Elements” on the project “I love my school” of the charity organization LightSource. Due to the project, which improved the school environment, we see that our students are more relaxed and come to school a lot more willingly.
The interest and curiosity about the information displayed on the wallpaper does not seem to cease. If you go through the foyers you are bound to encounter a student who has been studying and looking for answers to questions related to Earth, water, air, and light.
The message in the in the dining room wallpaper directs the children to making a better choice of healthy food and gives them ideas on how to continue to stay healthy at home too. The positive messages that are contained in the photo images and associated text greatly complement the value system of both teachers and students and help them to be more confident, successful and clear minded.
The renovation of the interior has brought about a number of positive changes in our school. There has been a growth of student entrants of almost a 30%, and the local community now sees our school as modern, innovative and progressive.Savina Ignatova
Rumyana Doncheva
Principal of 139 Zachary Krusha School in Sofia
My name is Rumyana Doncheva, and I am the principal of 139 Zachary Krusha School in Sofia. I am delighted to share my impressions of a wonderful project called “I Love My School,” which is part of the theme “Magic World.” Albena Spurling created an interior design with a unique style that completely transformed our school. Everyone who comes to visit us for the first time immediately notices the huge photo wallpaper and positive affirmations in the corridors. It is becoming a tradition for our students to photograph themselves against the background of these beautiful images and wise messages, every first school day and every holiday etc.
The overall change is fenomenal, the change of the external environment (i.e. the classrooms) into a colorful and inspiring school has had a positive effect on our classroom teachers. They also began to dress more colorfully and with a greater sense of aestethics. The project has taught the children to look after the physical learning environment, and for two years they have not drawn a single mark on any of the wallpaper, nothing seems out of place, as if the renovations have just taken place. Who would dare to ruin something so beautiful ?! The students seem to feel like they are at home here. They are happy and smiling, their uniforms in keeping with the magical world that surrounds them. Being their principal, I aim to make their rooms colorful, fresh and beautiful, every year.
This year, we won a project, which was part of the “Modern Education Environment” initiative, where the main idea was to lighten the students school bags by introducing a locker for each child. In each classroom, the lockers are color-matched to the wallpaper and the color of the walls. The project taught us how to arrange the colors and furniture in classrooms. This year we will be joining the “Children and Flowers” project and adding a mini flower garden to each classroom. This will be in keeping with the motto: “we add life to our years, not years to our lives.”
Our unusual interior design attracted the Bulgarian TV crew and they shot two different shows in our school because they liked the atmosphere here. The project “I love my school” attracted 30%. more students for the past two years.
I am proud to be the principal of this colorful and positive school, which motivates students to be successful in school and in life alike.
Thank you!Rumyana Doncheva
Principal of 139 Zahariy Krusha School – Sofia