Activity Report July – December 2021 – Summary

BOLD was incorporated in July 2021, but its work had already started before that time. The following activities were implemented in the 2^nd half of 2021:

1             Project “Monitoring Media Independence and Media Activity”

This project started in April 2021 and was completed in March 2022. This project has been implemented by BOLD on the basis of a tripartite agreement of 4 August 2021 between the Bulgarian American Commission for Educational Exchange, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee and Foundation BOLD.  

The specific objectives of the project were to: (1) strengthen the monitoring of media freedoms and media quality through creating a network of 100 trained activists and involving them in regular media monitoring; (2) increase media literacy through a fact-checking task force of 10 people; (3) increase society’s resilience to conspiracy theories related to Covid-19.

Overall, BOLD achieved the project’s objectives.

2             Project “Strategic Litigation for Vaccination Justice”

In this project, with Dimitrina Petrova as project leader, BOLD is a partner to BHC and we have been supported by OSF. The project was prepared in the summer and fall of 2021 and launched formally on Oct 1, 2021. It is ongoing according to plan.

Please see attached a separate interim activity report for this project that includes the last quarter of 2021.

3             Campaigns and Positions

In the report period, BOLD conducted regular members’ meetings at which it made decisions on campaigns, events, and positions on key issues of Bulgarian democracy. Highlights:

• November 2021: Address to the political parties participating in the negotiations for the formation of a regular government, https://boldbg.net/en/2022/01/26/address-to-the-political-parties-participating-in-the-negotiations-for-the-formation-of-a-regular-government/
• November-December 2021: Campaigns on rights during pandemics and preparation of an event that took place in January 2022.
• Maintaining the organizational website, https://boldbg.net and regular communication with the BOLD members.
• Media outreach: we have published about several articles in Bulgaria and abroad, and there have been over a dozen radio interviews with BOLD leaders during the report period on the political process, media freedom, the pandemic, etc.