Chernichevo Chronicles: the community narrative as a tool for community development

The Garden Association sets Community development as one of our the fundamental goals. In the last years we've been involved in small community organizing activities in the mountain village Chernichevo. We had the chance to use Community psychology in order to support the community development through the principles of community empowerment, community identity based on traditional local know-how and cultural uniqueness, place attachment, participatory decision-making, and social entrepreneurship skills [1].

One of the tools that we used to strengthen the locals' sense of identity and togetherness, was the technique of narration. Elderly people from the village (or from the diaspora in the bigger towns of the country) shared their memories about the past lifestyle, culture and traditions of the village, and their own experience. We recorded with my camera these narratives, and then I shared them with the village's Facebook group. The reactions of the group members prove that this approach was a success. The recordings carry the impressive name Chernichevo chronicles. (We chose it by purpose, because it sounds epic, and we wanted to provoke the people to think about their village as an epic village).

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Here are some videos from the series Chernichevo chronicles (they are all in Bulgarian):

Angel Stankov:

Kiro Anadoliev:



Husein Banchev:



Dobrinka Kalaydzhieva - Anadolieva:



Kera Valkova- Garabetova:



Pavel Haritov:

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[1] By examining and implementing the values and the methods of Community psychology, we supported the development of social entrepreneurship skills for community benefit. This eventually led to the reestablishment of the village's Community center as a place for grassroots activism. The biggest achievement of the local activists was the creation of female group for authentic folklore. The recent news is that Chernichevo's folklore-group won a silver medal from the 1st Balkan Folklore Festival in Nedelino town, the 7th and 8th of September 2013.

For the fifth consecutive year: "Introduction to Psychology"

During the course we'll try to find out
what's on the man's mind :)

For the fifth consecutive year the Open School Psychology at The Garden Association organizes the course "Introduction to Psychology". 

For whom the course is? 

The course is designed for students from 10th to 12th grades. 

These, who want to study psychology, will learn what is psychology as a science, and what they may work after graduate from university. 

Those, who want to study other disciplines, but still are interested in psychology, will learn how to use psychology in their fields of activities. 

What will you get? 

At the end of the course, you will have a wider general knowledge, better skills to understand the world, you will know more about yourself, you will gain a valuable social experience. 

You will learn what are the methods of psychology and how to apply them, in what areas of life is used psychology, and how they can use psychological knowledge in everyday life. 

We'll have fun and learn at the same time - in the natural way that good things happen. 

How the course works? 

The course includes short lectures and many interactive forms to work. 

Weekly workload would be about 5 hours a week. Half of the time will be used for group classes , and the other half - for independent work at home. 

During the course each participant will receive two times an individual feedback from the trainer. 

Who are we? 

Open School of Psychology is an initiative of The Garden Association - Haskovo. 

We organize this course for the fifth consecutive year. 

Our office is in the town of Haskovo, 26-A "Rakovsky" Blvd., 4th floor. Check it out :

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