Fighting Poverty with "Hands of Gold"

Dessi Dimitrova is a 26 yours old Bulgarian who travels to rural areas in Bulgaria to get acquainted with and collect knitwear from elderly retired women. It is part of the so called "Granny's Hands" project - a private initiative that aims at supporting economically elderly people in Bulgaria. Dessi has been living for many years in USA but her sporadic visits to her home country have helped her to discover the drastic increase in prices before Bulgaria's upcoming accession to the European Union which leaves millions of elderly people in poverty. During her visit to Bulgaria last year, she was worried to observe this situation and offered to send monthly monetary transfers to a selected group of elderly people - her grandmother and the latter’s friends. To her surprise everyone refused her gift, her offer had hurt their dignity. Then Dessi wondered how else she could help and she realized that the elderly have a marketable skill abroad: hand-knitting.

Now she is trying to create a whole network by creating a website for "Granny's Hands". She is optimistic about finding a market for the Granny's Hands products. Svetlana Dicheva from the Bulgarian National Radio asked Dessi Dimitrova to tell more about the project for the audience of Heritage Radio Network: