site.btaBulgarian Sunday School in South Africa Teaches 35 Children

A total of 35 children study in the Bulgarian Sunday school "Slancho" in South Africa, its principal Anton Nikolov told BTA in an interview. The kids attend its two facilities: one in Midrand, Johannesburg, and the other in Cape Town.

The school was opened in 2009 under the Bulgarian Sunday Schools Abroad programme of the Ministry of Education and Science, Nikolov explained.

According to him, Bulgarian culture can be preserved by teaching children the Bulgarian language so they can read and write, as well as through folklore - songs, dances, poems. 

"That's what we teach in our school - Bulgarian language and literature, from first to fourth grade, and fifth and sixth since recently. As the children move up, the classes thin out, but every year we have first-graders - new faces, smiling and willing to learn," Nikolov said. He noted that Bulgarian is not the first language of the children and they grow up in an English-speaking environment.