Projects related to the development of Sofia as an ecological and green city will be approved in the new edition of the “Sofia chooses” program of Sofia Municipality. The program supports citizens’ ideas for the improvement of the urban environment, chosen for implementation by themselves through voting.

Sofia Chooses is a program of Sofia Municipality, which was launched last year in order to encourage the direct participation of citizens, non-governmental and professional organizations in the proposal of projects and the distribution of the municipal budget. This was announced at a joint press conference by the Deputy Mayors of Sofia for Digitalization Gencho Kerezov, for Construction Eng. Angel Dzhorgov and Elitsa Panayotova – Coordinator of the Green Sofia Program.

The theme of the 2022 Program is GREEN.

Sofia was ranked in the finals of the Green Capital of Europe competition and our desire is to give more publicity and priority to the topic of sustainable development of the city and tackling climate change. That is why the focus will be on the green topic, said Deputy Mayor Gencho Kerezov.

The aim is to transform urban spaces so that they improve the state of the environment, promote sustainable mobility, and provide better access for citizens to places of recreation and recreational activities. And also to help preserve the city’s biodiversity and propose measures to tackle climate change. This was said by the coordinator of the Green Sofia program, arch. Elitsa Panayotova.

Proposed project proposals should focus on topics such as tackling climate change, conserving biodiversity, increasing trees in the urban environment, green roofs, urban agriculture, reducing air pollution, alternative energy sources and more.

This year in 28 metropolitan schools the activities for renovation of school toilets under the project “Sofia chooses the children” were realized.

In order to ensure the sustainability of the project, the Municipality will continue to invest in school buildings. This was said by the Deputy Mayor Eng. Angel Dzhorgov. According to him, co-financing of about BGN 600,000 is envisaged for the renovation of all other sanitary facilities in these 28 schools. In the coming years we will continue to work on the schools whose applications are on the reserve list, said Eng. Djorgov.

Any citizen, civil or professional organization can send conceptual proposals. Each proposal must be sent by December 31, 2021 to the email address: sofia.izbira@sofia.bg.