Her eyes widen and look reproachful. Because you’ve told her in public how much she’s done for the community, for the people she works with, the people she coexists with… But they’re smiling nonetheless. Helen Sabatini may make you angry, sad, but not angry. She just doesn’t like to be singled out. Because she’s a team player.
She came to us from France in 2006. In Varna. And she doesn’t leave. Not for the city, not for the country. He stays for the people
19 years later we are visiting her in the village of Ezerets in Shabla. With her husband Krasimir they have a small bee farm in the yard of their house. In the “Bee Garden” you will not see ryegrass, a swimming pool or a shed with a barbecue. This is a real country yard – with lots of herbs, flowers, fruit trees and green grass. The only thing different is the yurt, built to be a beekeeping demonstration center for the kids.
About “The Stage”
In May, preparations for a big event are underway in Ezerets. And no matter how scary we may look at Helen, we cannot ignore her key role in it. On the last weekend of July, the second edition of “The Stage” is going to take place here. They call it unpretentiously “charity fun”. But its aim is much bigger – to raise funds to restore the old community centre building in the centre of the village and turn it into a cultural hub for freelance artists. It was built with the volunteer labor of the grandparents of today’s Lake residents. There is a large cinema hall which could be converted into a modern cinema. “The stage can be used for puppet theatre, contemporary circus, dance, whatever. It’s small, but talk about dreams,” smiles Helen. There are smaller rooms that can become studios for ceramics, for painting, for different crafts. And the conference room is ideal for exhibitions. The rooms in the basement could possibly be used for lithography and a recording studio. The idea is for artists to come and work on their projects here, giving the village its first show, be it an exhibition or a performance. The aim is to raise funds to defend free culture, to work for the needs of the community, of the children in the village, says Ellen Sabatini about the plans of local activists. If it happens, this will be the third iconic building after the church and the old school, restored by the idea and the efforts of the local community.
During the first charity event last summer, the donations collected not only organized a two-day celebration, but also funded the construction of the cinema’s electrical system.
“I’m very happy because it was so much fun. The grandmothers made cakes, the children made lemonade. It was all for charity. Local businesses participated with food and drinks. Against everything you consume – you donate,” says Helen. Local entrepreneurs were initially wary of the initiative. “Because we were bringing a social activity into their business – something they either didn’t understand or didn’t want. There were long conversations trying to motivate them to participate, to be part of this community. Because they also wanted to have events. In the end, they all supported us,” says the French-rooted Lake resident.
This year the events will start even earlier. From 14 to 26 July, artists – art therapists from Living museum Sofia will visit Ezerets and work with the local community. They will demonstrate the healing power of art. On 26 and 27 July there will be concerts with special surprises and a charity bazaar. Deer doesn’t want to give away who will participate yet because they are in negotiations, but she is adamant: “We don’t want to organize something at any cost. It can be slow and different, but it has to suit our vision. Let it not be another concert”. For her, the relationships this event builds between people, to the village and to nature are more important than the coming of a super star.
“We do,
to be together
And for the values, the culture, for the communication, the health, the ecology, the care…” lists Helene Sabatini.
Before coming to Bulgaria, she graduated in ecology. She also has a bachelor’s degree in geography and natural risk management. Instead of continuing with my studies in theory, I decided to practice, the girl reflects back to 2006. She started looking for a job through the European Voluntary Service, first in Eastern Europe. She studied Russian. She has also been to Russia twice and liked the Slavic atmosphere.
“It was very fashionable in Western France, there was a current in the music alongside the French guitarist Django Reinhart, gypsy jazz. It was quite popular, there was a romanticism about it,” Helene recalls today. And then she says to herself, “Let’s go to Eastern Europe!” She admits with her hand on her heart that she didn’t know where Bulgaria was then. But looking back in time, she is very grateful. She calls Bulgaria her gift from fate.
Her volunteer work in ecology began at the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development in Varna, or OCESD for short, an NGO that is now almost 30 years old.
It is the people here
what makes it stay
The paper-separation campaign it mainly helps to run, “Leaf by Leaf”, continues to this day. It’s where he finds friends. “We used to get together every Monday. We used to go to the Galata. We used to catch mussels. That was human. People were open-hearted. And I felt good. That’s probably one of the reasons I’m still here,” says Helen. She says of herself that she has always been an activist, but never felt comfortable in an organization. She has worked at Amnesty International, at Surfrider – France, at Unicef. “It wasn’t until I came to OCOSUR that I really enjoyed it. We were working for ecology. But people weren’t strictly limited in what they did. On the contrary – some people came and helped just because their heart led them”.
What makes her feel good at home is that “many people of different ages and professions sit at the same table, they are friends, even though they are different”. This is the thing that makes her find herself.
Her meeting with Ezerets
comes quite quickly after arrival in Bulgaria. OCESD organizes a beach clean-up in the village of. Ezerets. Deer arrives in the village for the action together with Caroline, a volunteer from Germany in the association. And… for the first time she sleeps on tents on the wild beach. “We have an ocean in my area, but wild camping is absolutely forbidden. It was very exciting. Here I met nature, the silence… It was really wild. In Bulgaria nature is wonderful. Then I realized that the climate is perfect. That the land is fertile. And I thought: wow! This is where I belong.”
And as the best things happen outside your plans, so it is with Helen. She always thought she would live near a mountain. She comes to us, to the sea, without any expectations. And she stayed for the 19th year.
She met Krassimir, her husband, at the famous beach clean-up. He is an artist and beekeeper, but his passion is black and white photography. The scent of honey and wax, however, is what attracted her. Helen has a beekeeper uncle in northern Spain. “I remember the smell of the wax in his house. He first introduced me to beekeeping”. Then, alongside ecology in France, she started working in the organic market. The beekeeper next door sells honey, honey bread and natural cosmetics, and her family set up the region’s first teaching bee farm. This left a lasting mark on her mind.
For the bees
Yes, the bees are impressive, says Helen with respect today. Together with Krassimir they have an apiary with 70 hives. And years ago – 300. According to Helene, the bees’ demise is linked to their loss of immunity and to an environment that is becoming increasingly polluted and unsustainable. There is also a phenomenon that has been observed in recent years – the pollen is decreasing both in quantity and type. This is linked to monoculture – we are growing fewer and fewer types of plants. “Add to that the drought, especially in autumn, when the need for pollen is the greatest because of the creation of new offspring… At the end of autumn, the bees decrease,” is the logical explanation of the beekeeper-ecologist.
The demise of the bees is one of the reasons why Helene Sabatini created, together with the OECSD, the educational module “Know the bees, protect the future”. It includes a large three-dimensional model of a bee, a hive with honeycombs made into games, and a suitcase of beekeeping tools. With all this, she and her colleagues are touring kindergartens and schools to talk about the benefits of bees. She says her reason for doing this is her love of nature, not so much that she is good at beekeeping. “This is my contribution. My way of expressing myself through art. Every day I try to find man’s place in nature. I try to open a door to it by opening my heart,” reflects Helen.
She admits that she did not expect the educational module to be such a success. And she describes it as a highlight of her work with the Public Centre for Environment and Sustainable Development. “I am very grateful. This is our success. Not just mine. And that’s the nice thing about this project. A girl who studies applied arts made the frames in the education hive. A puppeteer made the bee. A journalist from OCSD created the script for the film about the bees. The whole team went to a training eco-camp in Ezerets. All this actually made this project contagious. And it continues to charge”, shines the eyes of Helene Sabatini. And she can’t stop marvelling at the result, which… has no end. Because when you do something with heart, magic happens…
За „Трамплин“
Така се получава и с фондацията в с. Езерец, която Елен основава заедно със съмишленици от селото, за да възстановят сградата на старото читалище.
When 15 years ago OCOSUR organized the first eco-camp in the village of. Ezerets, it was the French woman who made the connection between the participants in the eco-camps – the city people and the village. They visit the mayor’s office, the church, the local grandmothers who teach them to knit rugs out of plastic bags… But perhaps she brought the local community together the most when she became the secretary of the Ezerets community centre. He took the community work as an opportunity to bring culture to every villager. It is also continuity, history and folklore…, says Ellen. And she started looking for her fellow villagers “door to door” to do community initiatives together. They created “Ezerets Place”. They organize a beach clean-up, look for a solution for waste management in the village. They make the so-called “Green Days”, during which there are discussions, art installations, placemaking, summer cinema, bazaar… This creates the link between the locals and the new settlers in Ezerets. “This festival has turned us into a community”, Sabatini is convinced. People in the village continue to seek her out even when she stops community activities and takes on her own projects. “They missed what we were doing”. And because there are a lot of artists in Ezerets, they decided to turn the old community center building into a free performance space for artists. So they founded the Tramplin Foundation, whose chairman is Ellen Sabatini.
To the big stage
“The idea is to “launch” to the big stage the artists who don’t have an audience yet. And to do it under the wings of better-known artists.” So they’re starting to organise the charity event at the end of July, during which stars support a new band.
When asked how much money they need to restore the building, Deer answers simply: “a lot”. The owner of the building is the Municipality of Shabla, and the Tramplin Foundation is its partner in the venture. The idea is to equip a cultural centre through concerts and projects, and then to make it self-supporting through events. “Everyone can help by coming to Ezerets the last weekend of July and being our audience. To enjoy what we do. We’re also looking for sponsors to support the arts,” Helen Sabatini urges, adding, “The foundation is about different people being able to be together, not as friends or family or like-minded, but as people.
Health – that’s what she wishes for herself. And the other… the other we can achieve together and it depends on us: ‘To have no war, to believe in the good, to work heartily and not to find fault with each other… To restore more peaceful relations between us. Ecology has long been criticised because it does not produce, it does not make money. But now it is the salvation from coarseness in society. Let us reconnect with nature. That will balance both our health and our relationships. Everything…”
