Her paternal family is from the village of Tarnava, Vratsa region. During one of the major crises that accompanied Bulgaria's transition from the Socialist rule to democracy and a market economy, her parents lost their jobs and went abroad. Kalinka moved to live with her grandmother and aunt in the town of Byala Slatina. 

"I am from the generation of Bulgarian children who grew up with her grandmother, grandfather and aunt, instead of mom and dad. That's why I am happy for all the kids who are with their parents today," says Kalinka Pancheva, director of the Bulgarian Sunday School "Rodna Stryaha" in Cyprus. ‎

‎"Hope and need give birth to our schools abroad – the need to be close to our homeland, the hope that our children will someday return. For me, the huge motivation came with the birth of my little daughter Panayota, 10 years ago, on April 8. And then I realized that I was at a very important moment in my life, in which I had to decide how to act and find an opportunity for her to grow up in an environment in which she could learn the Bulgarian language without an accent. So that when she returned to our homeland, she would not feel like a foreigner. Six months after her birth, we opened the school. On October 3, we rolled up our sleeves and, together with ten other parents in my situation, decided that we could do it."‎

The support of the other parents, but also of Kalinka's family, played a huge role in the success of the venture. Her husband Yorgos financially took on all the necessary payments, and the other parents – the salary of the second teacher. "It was a difficult period in financial terms, but it did not make us give up, but even brought us together even more," Kalinka Pancheva recalls today. 

Her parents, who have lived in Cyprus for 30 years, also provided great support. Together with their family friend Maria Deliivanova, they managed to bring from Bulgaria a rich folklore inventory that any ethnographic museum could be proud of, as Mrs. Pancheva jokingly puts it. The folk singer from Strandzha, Zhechka Slaninkova, donated her authentic folk costume. And so, with Renaissance enthusiasm and a lot of hard work, the group from Cyprus managed to build a place where every child can become immersed in the atmosphere of the Bulgarian traditional way of life.

"We started the school with a dozen children, today there are ten times more",  Kalinka Pancheva continues to tell us. "This means that every year the number of children enrolled increased. And with this our desire to be closer to them. So we opened two more branches of the school. 

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary since the founding of the Rodna Stryaha Bulgarian school in Cyprus, a seminar for teachers from other Bulgarian Sunday schools abroad will be held in Larnaca from April 12 to 14 this year.

Most of the parents of the students at the Rodna Stryaha Bulgarian School have been in Cyprus for over 20 years, we learn from Mrs. Pancheva. "They are engaged in various fields of activity related to the main source of income in Cyprus – tourism. A large part of the Bulgarians have already bought homes, which shows that our compatriots are willing to stay there for a longer period of time. And their only contact with Bulgaria is the Bulgarian schools", says the school principal Kalinka Pancheva, not without pain in her voice. 

She herself left Bulgaria because of the humiliating salaries and difficult living conditions of teachers in Bulgaria years ago.

At the end of our conversation with her, we ask her what her dream is for herself personally and for Bulgaria: