She wrote a crowdfunded book called Vagina Matters, the first illustrated, Bulgarian-language sex-education book for girls, all in pink. The reaction was swift – media uproar and online attacks. While short-lived, the backlash was intensely emotional. Demand for the book ballooned, quieting the critics. Messages from readers poured in – stories from women about body image struggles, experiences at the gynecologist or concerns about how to openly talk about sex ed issues.
“I cried over the positive responses the book received,” Svetla Baeva (’07) recalled. “Even a 53-year-old woman wrote to tell us how much she learned about her own body from the book, wondering how to start the conversation with her teenage daughter.”
Vagina Matters Cover
Credit: Radina Gancheva for Fine Acts
Vagina Matters
Credit: Radina Gancheva for Fine Acts
Now this conversation is easier, thanks to Baeva, a 2007 AUBG grad and the Campaigns Director at Fine Acts, a global creative studio for social impact, a non-profit that does advocacy and campaigning around big issues of the day like human rights and climate change.
The power of art
Started by a group of activists, journalists, artists, and advertising gurus, Fine Acts, a team of change agents, is active around the world, including the Balkans. Their mission reads, in part: “We believe in the power of art and play. In our work, we think about ways to make people care and act, and we create novel avenues to empower activism.” They call this “Playtivism,” the process of incorporating play and experimentation in activism. But it’s not in the least unserious.
One example created in 2022 is DECKTATORS — a board game about defending civic space that puts players in the shoes of a dictator. The description says: “It makes people painfully aware of the tools and tactics of oppression, and able to recognize autocrats for what they really are. The sweetest part? All tactics are 100% real and based on real-world actions by real-world dictators (or as they often call themselves – liberators).”
But critics of progressive agendas and making democracy sound interesting aren’t amused. Baeva laments the increase in invective directed at the civil society sector overall. “Civil society organizations are under attack across the region. Activists and organizations are called various names like ‘agents of Soros,’” referring to the Hungarian American businessman George Soros who has donated more than $32 billion to promote democracy through his Open Society Foundation. AUBG received his support in its startup phase and many students have been awarded scholarships.
At times activism can feel like a lonely pursuit and Baeva experiences more than her share of ups and downs. “Your personal life can be affected by activism. You sometimes feel like you have no privacy or moments of respite. But we have internal networks for sharing and providing support as well as dealing with witnessing the trauma and pain of the communities we work with.”
Shine a light, make a difference
One example of witnessing intense suffering was earlier in Baeva’s career after she got her master’s degree from Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands. On one of her first field missions, she was sent by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the leading human rights organization in the country, to monitor mental health institutions in a rural part of Bulgaria.
“I was to shed some light on what was going on in these places. They had the smell of a place left to rot, including the people in them. I will never forget that experience.”
“For decades, the policy was to keep people with disabilities isolated. Bulgaria was not alone in having these human warehouses, and while the deinstitutionalization process has been ongoing for over a decade many issues remain regarding the old and emerging forms of care for both children and adults.”
There is a sobering list of other issues, but Baeva seems well-suited to tackle them if she can avoid burnout, an occupational hazard for people in this line of work. She gives due credit for getting her to this point to earlier life experiences, including her time at AUBG.
A child of parents who worked mainly abroad in the Bulgarian foreign service, Baeva was born in the U.S. and grew up crisscrossing the globe.
“When I finally got back to Bulgaria, I couldn’t speak the language fluently and had somewhat of an identity crisis,” she said. “It affected everything—friendships, self-image, interests. I felt lost and was a very late bloomer.”
“AUBG, where I studied journalism along with European studies, provided a space to experiment, to try new things and encouraged creativity, things that are hard to come by in other higher education institutions in this part of the world.”
Baeva also reveled in the diversity of the student body. “Due to our complicated history in the region, Bulgarians were never very well-connected with other countries in the Balkans. When I got to AUBG there were students from the entire region. My best friends were Serbians, Kosovars, and Croatians. Some of them had been refugees and knew war.”
“It was a place where we reshaped the mental borders that divide us.”
The ties that bind us
Baeva, 38, continues to use her voice in creative ways. One project at Fine Acts involved putting a light on the plight of Bulgaria’s Roma minority population in an effort to increase empathy and understanding and to encourage Roma people to share their own story. This turned into WESEUM, a “museum of us,” where people facing discrimination became curators of their own exhibition.
The driving force behind the exhibition was a decision by the city to evict a Roma community from city-owned property where they had lived for more than 20 years. They were given a week to vacate with no alternative housing provided.
“We asked people from the community, what makes you happy? Sad? Each person responded with an object and the story behind it. They shared photos of dear ones, precious family heirlooms like an old ring, a high school diploma, soil from the ground below one of the destroyed homes, and more. The exhibition, a collection of these objects and their stories, was a glimpse into the lives, hopes, challenges, dreams and triumphs of a Roma community, who lost their hard-earned homes. It allowed people to look beyond stereotypes and connect with each other on a deeply personal level.”
Is this work with trauma making a difference? Baeva believes it is.
Shtiliana Stefanova
Credit: Veselina Nikolaeva / Fine Acts
WESEUM soil
“There is progress but not as fast as we’d like. The role of the public citizen in Bulgaria is not well defined or fully understood. Getting people to vote is a challenge. Petitioning government officials, self-advocacy or advocating for policies and changes that benefit the community are works in progress.”
“It takes time to build muscle through active participation.”
There remain internal and external threats to building this muscle. “In Bulgaria today, the struggle to form a government risks leading us into disaster and further disarray. Also, unprecedented disinformation, including from Russia, has left people uncertain about what is true, and rumors and misinformation quickly become accepted as truth in the minds of some.”
Kamenka Metodieva
Credit: Veselina Nikolaeva / Fine Acts
But there is hope.
“I also see a rise in participation among young people. Activists who really care about solving major problems and improving Bulgaria and the region. I see changes. People enthusiastic and committed to a future rooted in equality and justice for the community and planet.”
