The ten outstanding young persons of Bulgaria were selected for the second year running, as part of the Outstanding Young Persons of the World (TOYP) programme which serves to formally recognize young people who excel in their chosen fields and exemplify the best attributes of the world's young people. The winners in the individual countries will vie at an international level, alongside foremost individuals from all over the world.

John Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Elvis Presley, Jackie Chan are just some of the famous names with TOYP awards. And next to them is a 25-year old girl from Bulgaria, who derives pleasure from helping the disadvantaged in her country. Iva Tsolova is winner in the TOYP “Humanitarian and/or voluntary leadership” category.

“I was 17, and still at the German language school and together with a friend of mine, during recess, we would collect clothes and toys for orphanages,” she says. “But when we went there, we saw that it was not what we were bringing that mattered to the children, what mattered was our attention and the time we spent with them. And that was what prompted me to take different causes to heart and to fight for them.”

Two years ago Iva found out there was an awareness campaign underway, presenting young people with impaired hearing who have been successful in their professions in spite of their disability. That was the first time she came in contact with the Listen Up foundation. Iva herself has a cousin with hearing problems, but that was not the reason she decided to become a volunteer.

“Communicating with deaf people is really inspiring, it shows that though you might be impaired in some way, that does not make you any less human, on the contrary. The only thing missing is to be given an equal start, equal access so you can develop on an equal footing with everybody else.”

One of the latest things Iva has been devoting her time to is the creation of a National Sign Language Centre to assist communication at different institutions, hospitals, universities, shopping centres.

“Practically nothing has been done in the past 50 years to help the deaf in Bulgaria,” says Iva Tsolova. “The biggest problem is how to overcome the status quo, the learned helplessness – with stereotypes like “You are deaf” or “You cannot do this”, even “You are half-human”. All these years people with hearing impairments have been in the dark, no one has taken the slightest interest in them, no one has tried to help them develop. That is why the focus of our efforts is on changing the way society thinks and that is something that has been happening with more and more success. We have the active support of the civic sector as well as businesses and that makes us very happy.”

Besides competing at the international TOYP competition in Canada, Iva Tsolova, together with Alexandra Mircheva will be the Bulgarian youth delegates at the UN.

“Our first objective together is to actively promote education as something fundamental for any young person - if they want to develop they must have qualification and different skills,” Iva says. “The second thing that is important to us is a hot topic for young people – social entrepreneurship targeted at people with disabilities and a career for them in this sphere. We would also like to continue the good practice that the current youth delegates developed successfully – popularizing the aims of sustainable development.”

Iva’s dream is to travel the world. She recently tried out paragliding and she says she can’t wait to see the world from so far up again. She is also studying Arabic. And as she is very active, she has her own company which endeavours to help people with disabilities succeed in sphere such as marketing, public relations, advertising, management.

English version: Milena Daynova