A team of experts (Veselin Trendafilov and Stefan Hristov) and our partner Spaska Petrova, “Nov pat” – v. Hairedin visited on site an implemented initiative for the purchase of equipment for a café in v. Lesnovo. We discussed several new proposals for initiatives.
During our visit we were glad to find out that the café was managed very well. The owner Anelia Dudinova was decided to develop it further. The beneficiary shared that she managed to pay her contributions and to have good income as well. Her plans were to apply again for the purchase of a TV (improving the interior) and for a fridge for expanding the assortment with quick snacks. Our recommendation was after completing paying 50% of the current initiative we could finance the purchase of the equipment needed.

We reviewed the proposal from Natalia Radeva. She had a registered company since 2013, but till now she hadn’t been dealing with agricultural activities. Her previous experience was as a waitress (she has the right education). Her husband currently was working abroad as a truck driver and they could count on stable income. Her proposal was for the purchase of restaurant equipment such as tables, stools, counters, etc. The restaurant would be situated in the center of village Lesnovo, at the second floor of a big community building. We specified the terms of the financing. The restaurant was at the early stage of updating – there were new windows frames, and currently were fixing the roof and the floor of the room. There were no lavatories, neither kitchen unit. The electricity installation should be checked as well. Our recommendation was to wait for the building and repair work to complete and afterwards to review the proposal once again.
The third proposal we assessed came from a youngster at 22 from roma origin, who together with his father intended to start agriculture activity. Their intentions for the concrete activity were vague but in general they intended to do livestock. They were willing to raise 15-20 goats, in order to have permanent income from the activity. The youngster had no experience raising animals. His father had been raising cows before and thought he could manage raising goats. They owned a plot with a house in nearby village Sarantsi, where they could raise the goats. During our conversation with the applicant we revealed his priorities to deal with crop production and his plans for raising goats were set to the background. Our recommendation was the applicant to set his priorities. The partner should assist the applicant in the search of a proper plot for purchase when his ideas are clarified.