By Georgi Bakoev (YES 2015-2016, Bulgaria, hosted by World Link in West Des Moines, IA)

I left the StartQube Social Entrepreneurship Workshop held in Macedonia in October 2016 with a passion to make a positive difference in my home community through social entrepreneurship. During the workshop, I learned how to brainstorm effectively, how to come up with an idea that can be implemented, how to structure a team, plan finances, control and manage a given budget, attract investors and volunteers and, finally, pitch entrepreneurship ideas to investors in a real-time challenge. 

After I came back to my home country, I started brainstorming. Inspired by a past Global Youth Service Day project I had implemented to help a children's orphanage in Sofia, Bulgaria, I knew I had to do something for another extremely neglected group in our society. This time, I decided to focus on the elderly people living in public nursing homes. The conditions they have to live in are poor and, in my opinion, unacceptable. That's the reason why, with the support of my mother, I took on a challenge that expanded my perspective and understanding of how important community projects are. We found a nursing home for patients who suffer from Alzheimer's and dementia close to my neighborhood. We had a conversation with the staff, and both sides agreed that what really needed improvement was the "Quiet Room" - a place where patients can have some time for themselves, which, given their condition, is of great importance. The idea was to raise money through presentations, bake sales, and general donations.

I shared the skills I had learned at the workshop with my family and friends, and together we sold hundreds of our homemade cookies, cakes and other pastries at bake sales. People were curious about our cause and donated without even buying anything. We managed to collect over $400. We also made many presentations about the project and the YES program.

In the end, with all the money that we raised and free labor provided by a local construction agency, the room was renovated from top to bottom. The staff at the nursing home said that what we did was going to change many lives and make a world of difference to the people living there.

I saw the impact of my project most clearly in the following words of a volunteer from our team: “The way I see it, what you are doing right now is just like climbing a hill – step by step. At the end, you will turn around and realize that the whole mountain has been conquered.”

The StartQube Social Entrepreneurship Workshop program for FLEX and YES alumni was funded by the United States Department of State and the U.S. Embassies in Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Macedonia, and organized by American Councils. This project was supported by the U.S. Embassy in Sofia through the post-workshop grants program.