Култура

The Regional Governor Ivan Dimitrov invited on January 28 in Pazardzhik representatives of all Chitalishtes from the district. At his idea the meeting was attended by the Deputy Minister of Culture G. Karabadjakov, experts from the Ministry of Culture and Regional Government, MPs from NDSV. Three community centers from our municipality sent their representatives - the secretaries in Ledgene and Chepino and the chairman in Draginovo. Specially for the meeting have come heads of culture from all municipalities, for health reasons there was no official representative of the Municipality of Velingrad.

After the meeting we talked with the secretary of the community center "Father Paisii" Ivan Stoyanov. He shared that for years such an initiative has not collected them and the meeting has given the opportunity to put all pressing problems of the community center activity. Funding was discussed in the first place. For 2002 the state budget allocated 20 million levs for the community centers, targeted funds would be included in the municipal budgets as well. The discussion clearly showed that the trend is towards major changes in the current or straight to the adoption of a new law for the Chitalishtes. Because now the incumbent conflicts with many other laws, especially regarding the financing of these cultural institutions, which are already independent legal entities. It was officially reported that in the field of culture the lowest salaries are in the community centers. However, there are also valedictorian municipalities such as Strelcha and Lesichevo, where community workers received the 13th salary. The vast majority of the proposals made were for direct funding of the Chitalishtes by the state and the Ministry of Culture. The topic of renovations of community buildings was discussed. The problem of the Chepino Community Center, whose building has been being renovated for nearly two decades, was posed by Secretary Kantarev. The Regional Governor Ivan Dimitrov has announced that at a meeting with him all mayors from the district have promised full support for the community centers in their municipalities. The secretary of the community center "Father Paisii" Ivan Stoyanov gave as an example the renovation of their building under the project "Beautiful Bulgaria III", for which they received overall support from the mayor Dr. Dafov. The representatives of the cultural ministry have stressed that the Chitalishtes should be especially active in searching for and participating in various projects. Here, as a major problem, it is pointed out that the Chitalishtes do not reach or very difficult to reach information about the projects they can apply for. In this respect, they also demand more cooperation from the municipalities. The meeting found a discrepancy in the number of community centers in the municipality of Velingrad. De facto they are 11, but it turned out that two of them did not submit registration with the Ministry of Culture. Elena Baeva