Dimitrina Petrova

Dr Dimitrina Petrova is the initiator of BOLD (Bulgarians Organizing for Liberal Democracy). She developed the concept for BOLD during her six-month Reagan-Fascell Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC, USA, in 2018. She launched the BOLD initiative initially inside the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, and since July 2021 is the Director of Foundation BOLD. In 2017-2020 she was Director of Programmes at SOS Children’s Villages, an organisation that combines the delivery of social services for children with child rights advocacy. Prior to that, Dimitrina co-founded and developed two influential international human rights organisations, the Equal Rights Trust based in London, UK (2006-2016) and the European Roma Rights Centre based in Budapest, Hungary (1996-2006). During her work at the Equal Rights Trust she developed large-scale multi-year anti-discrimination projects in 46 countries around the world, including Belarus, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Myanmar, Russia, Sudan, Ukraine and the countries of Central Asia, among others. She has been a consultant to a number of international organizations, including the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe and the World Bank.

Dimitrina Petrova has taught as a visiting professor at a number of universities, with long-term appointments at the University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon, USA), the Central European University (Budapest), the College of Europe (Warsaw campus). In 2010 she received the Eric Lane Fellowship from Clare College, Cambridge (UK) to work on social justice in healthcare. In 1992, Dimitrina founded and led the first national Roma human rights organization in Europe, the Human Rights Project. From 1982 to 1995 she taught philosophy at the Kliment Okhridski University of Sofia. In 1990-1991 she was a Member of Parliament in the Seventh Grand National Assembly, representing Ecoglasnost. She received her PhD in Bulgaria (1994), with a dissertation on “Utopia and Value Rationality”, and has over 150 academic and non-academic publications on equality, human rights, Bulgarian history, and a wide range of socio-political topics. She is the recipient of several international awards in recognition of her achievements in the democracy and human rights movement.