Three projects by Bulgarian NGOs to combat loneliness, social isolation and inequality were given the project of the Year 2008 award by the Tulip Foundation.

A jury selected three winners from 10 shortlisted projects. The awards were presented at a ceremony on March 30 2009.

Jury members included Ivo Prokopiev, chairperson of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, film director Agela Peeva, British actor Ben Cross, Petya Tetevenska, board member of Bulgarian National Television, Dutch ambassador to Bulgaria Willem van Ee, Levon Hampartsouryan, chairperson of the board and general director of Unicredit Bulbank, director of Fairplay International Ani Zaharieva, Bernar Moskeni, general director of BTK and Nina Mircheva, the director of corporate communications at MTel.

All projects had been developed by local organisations and served immediate and concrete local needs.

Inequality, especially of people with disabilities in sports, inspired an NGO in Pazardjik to hold the first chess tournament for mentally disabled people. In the tournament, 33 people from Sofia, Bourgas, Dobrich, Asenovgrad, Lovech, Rousse and Pazardjik took part.

The Open Doors Centre in Pleven was awarded for its project to support female victims of domestic violence. Through the opening of a laundrette, the project provided temporary workplaces for 33 women from the Open Doors shelter. Part of the income from the project was used to help the women develop their position in the labour market.

The third project to be honoured was Together by the Solidarity Association from Shumen. The project brought together two socially isolated groups; children under the age of three in medical/social care homes and pensioners living alone. By bringing these two groups together, the project solved the lack of close emotional ties with grownups that children in the homes faced, while at the same time widening the social contacts of elderly participants in the project.