Another year has passed for our work as an Association. We will celebrate Christmas in only a few days and it is a privilege and joy to share with you some of the achievements during this year.
In 2013, for the second year, we celebrated the Marriage week! This is an international initiative to promote marriage between a man and a woman, which SVA has initiated and coordinated in Bulgaria. This year we were able to give more publicity to the importance of the weekly meetings between spouses, with an active campaign in the social networks and the media. We held a competition dedicated to the Marriage week with prizes, which received inspiring stories of different couples.
We continued our civil actions against the legalization of mandatory kindergarten for 4 year olds. Our actions (open letter, press-conference, protests, participation in public discussions and media) along with others, has helped to postpone the passing of the bill. Fortunately, this bill failed to fully be passed before the cabinet to resigned, despite the strong political pressure!
Association Society and Values (SVA) participated in a meeting of the organizations part of the civil platform of the Federal Rights Agency of EU in Vienna, as a member of the platform. During the discussions SVA actively advocated the best interests of children with focus being on the child’s right to a father and mother.
This year, in conjunction with other civil society organizations, we again sent an open letter in defense of marriage being between a man and a woman. The occasion was as a result of another gay parade in the capital and the homosexual propaganda brandished around society. Throughout the year, thanks to our volunteers, we translated and published on our web site, a number of educational materials and news on the topic, that were not being covered by our national media.
SVA was actively involved in a number of European campaigns dedicated to the protection of marriage between a man and a woman (France, Russia, Croatia) and we sent a letter strongly voicing our concerns with regards the police violence and arbitrary arrests of peaceful protesters in Paris against same-sex marriages in France.
During the summer SVA held an educational discussion with over 30 young people on the topic of homosexuality and the drastic legislative changes in Europe and the US.
In 2013 we helped to actively promote the campaign “One of Us” in social networks, Christian communities and media. It has become the most successful European citizens’ initiative in the EU, gathered nearly 1.9 million signatures in defense of life from conception!
In December our common efforts were successful in stopping interference attempts by the EU in the area of legalized abortion, restricted parental rights, imposed sexual and homosexual education on young learners and restricting Freedom of Conscious in the European Parliament.
SVA initiated and hosted an informal meeting for a group of like-mind leaders and people with guest speakerMr. Luca Volonte, Honorary President of the EPP Group in the Council of Europe. The meeting was dedicated to the important role of each one of us, as part of the civil society play, in actively defending the value of family on a National and European level.
Thank you for playing an active part in the work we are doing – your contribution has certainly helpingus achieve these results.
