Sevda Ivanova lives in Samokov and works in Borovets as an area manager for Neilson, an English tourist company. But she is not just a regular rep. Yes, she will help you out if you've lost your documents during the holiday and she will amuse you with witty jokes.

She will take you to a hospital in case you get hurt while skiing and she won't lose sight of you until she's sure you're going back home safe and sound.

What is unique about her is that she uses her position, and not to her own merit, but to the merit of the children from an orphanage in the vicinity. Every season she organises donations for them, involving her tourists in the cause. She asks them to leave her their children's sweaters, toothpastes, shampoos and such that they don't need on their way home. Her dream is to bring a smile to the faces of the children from the orphanage.

Everything started eight years ago – in 1998. "I wanted to do some good to these kids," Sevda says. The orphanage in the village of Gutsal is just 20km from her working place.

Her basic idea was to make one day yearly a little different for the children from the orphanage. All of her colleagues supported her. A dream come true – that is what Sevda's day is for the children.

Events start in the morning – a special coach takes the kids from Gutsal to Borovets. There they have lunch, then go sledging or horse-riding. Sevda takes them for a tour of the resort in horse-drawn carts and invites them to the gondola for a panoramic view of the mountains. In the evening there is dancing and karaoke. All the organisers during that day are actually local partner companies to Neilson that provide their services for free – the restaurant, the coach company and so on.

Behind that one happy day stands a lot of work during the winter. Usually Sevda arranges her meeting with the children from the orphanage for the end of March, when the tourist season has finished.

Obviously, Sevda manages to pass her positive energy onto tourists, because they gladly take part in her initiative. They give her different things – warm clothes that will be too small for their children next season, semi-empty bottles of shampoo and toothpaste tubes. It seems like something very insignificant, but Sevda insists it is exactly the opposite. "These are petty things, but the children from the orphanage don't have the money to buy them," she explaines.

Sevda's colleagues help by buying chocolates for the children and by machine washing, sorting and packing the clothes.

Sevda is very modest about her charity cause. "This is Neilson's policy; all our representatives around the world are involved in some kind of donations." She strongly stresses she doesn't do it in order to earn glory. "I simply know that these kids need a friend, someone to have fun with." According to her, charity doesn't mean only throwing a wad of money on the manager's desk in the orphanage once in a while. "The kids are in want of warmth and human attention," she says.

Per recent research, only about two per cent of the children in orphanages in Bulgaria are real orphans. The rest of them are left there by parents who don't want or can't look after them. "That's what makes my heart hurt and it's the main motive for what I do," Sevda says. She hopes that by taking the kids outside the orphanage for at least several hours, she will manage to make them forget their present situation and experience beautiful moments.

What makes Sevda really angry is the fact that many people doubt the use of charity. "They ask me why am I doing it and what is the good of it," she ways. "Most Bulgarians are distrustful and always seek a (self-profitting) purpose behind such actions," she sorrowfully concludes. Nevertheless, words of that kind never manage to distract Sevda and she continues organising her donations.

Children's appreciation is natural, but in her case there is something more than that. They come to her like a member of their big family and call her Aunt Sevda. They paint pictures for her, present her with dried leaves, sing songs together with her. "I still keep in touch even with some of the grown-up ones, who have already left the orphanage," Sevda explains. Every year, in the end of March, after the happy and wild day of merry-making, when she sees the kids off, Sevda is sad and often cries a little. And that is also natural when everyting comes from the heart.