Photo: Marica Kolcheva for Grazia
We are delighted to announce that Bistra Ivanova, Multi Kulti Collective’s co-founder and chairperson, has been nominated for Grazia’s prestigious award ‘Woman of the Year’. Due to her dedicated work supporting foreigner’s integration she has been nominated in the Community/Society category.
Bistra has been involved in the cause since 2010 when she was selected as volunteer in Open Society Institute – Sofia’s project ‘Custody Visiting at Police Detention Facilities and Bulgarian Detention Centres for Illegal Immigrants” coordinated by Zvezda Vankova (later Multi Kulti Collective’s co-founder and chairperson til March 2016). Bistra’s professional life started as a volunteer and then grew to a project coordinator, project manager, integration expert, deputy chairperson to chairperson since April 2016. She has been the national coordinator of European Commission’s European Website on Integration since 2015. She has graduated Communications in Sofia University and Financial Management and Marketing in University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship in Sofia. She has specialized Migration Law and Research Methods in Université libre de Bruxelles, University of Amsterdam, University of London and Central European University, Budapest. Bistra has been awarded a number of honors in Bulgaria and Europe such as Volunteer of the Year (2011, Astika Foundation, Bulgaria), 40 under 40 (2014, Darik Radio, Bulgaria), Global Shaper (2014-2015, World Economic Forum, Switzerland), Community Leader (2015-2016, Via Foundation, Czech Republic).
‘As usual for us, Grazia’s team, the awards in ‘Woman of the Year’ are the nominations themselves. They are our biggest award in each category to each nominee. The statuettes we are going to give at the end of November at our 11th yearly ceremony are additional recognition from our readers and audience,” writes Grazia’s editor in chief Polya Alexandrova.
If you would like to support Bistra and Multi Kulti’s cause, please consider voting for her (in Bulgarian). You need to register at Grazia’s website first.