A total of 987 schools have been closed in Bulgaria since 2000, according to a report by the Ministry of Education and Science. The most common reason for this is the decreasing number of pupils in them. However, there are cases when old schools that were closed years ago are being revived. One such example can be found in the municipality of Gorna Malina, close to Sofia, where in the village of Osoitsa, a daring and motivated team of people have given a new life to the building of the local school, which used to stay empty for years. Now, cheerful children's voices can be heard again in the yard and corridors.

"The school was built in 1930 by Bulgarian refugees after the Kresna-Razlog Uprising. They settled in the village of Osoitsa and the population gradually grew,” says Tatyana Zaharieva, head of the revived school. “The people decided that having a new school was the most important thing to do, so the then mayor took a special loan. An Italian architect became the designer and brought with him two Italian stonemasons who trained the local stonemasons. All the people from the village and the surrounding area participated in the construction of the school. Part of it is a clock tower that is a monument of culture. When I first saw the building, it had been abandoned for 30 years, as the only thing the municipality had done was repairing the roof. Everything in this building is unique and this will allow the school to exist for at least another 200-300 years," Zaharieva says.

The school is now one of 10,000 schools across 160 countries accredited to work under the Cambridge international curriculum. This allows it to exchange experience with other prestigious educational institutions and provide a chance for realization of its graduates in any part of the planet. In addition to the international program, the school also works under the program of the Ministry of Education and Science with emphasis placed on the Bulgarian language, history, geography and mathematics.

"For us, it is important that children stay connected to nature, have time for sports and hikes in the mountains, but they also need a very good academic foundation which they can step on, in order to build the future ahead of them,” Tatiana Zaharieva tells Radio Bulgaria. “I do not want our school to become a manufacturer of ‘cogs’ for the corporate machine. We educate people, keep children's creative imaginations alive so they can believe they can achieve anything they dream of.''

A number of extracurricular activities contribute to this, as the school has a theater club, music group, school newspaper. A kitchen for healthy food is currently being built on the property, along with dormitories where the children will be able to spend the night. More than 20 teachers, including Bulgarians and foreigners, are also involved in Tatiana's cause.

“The music teacher is from Cuba. Her name is Irenia Vasquez. The children adore her because of the dynamics in her classes. With her help, they created a song for the school with their own lyrics and music. What we also want to achieve is that children from the entire region of Gorna Malina have their own children's radio," Tatiana Zaharieva says about her dreams for the school and the region.

English: Al. Markov