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Peace Corps Volunteer Jim Guittard has written a song in support of the Bulgarian teachers demanding salary increases
‘I know that as a Peace Corps volunteer I am not supposed to take any stand, but I see what teachers in Bulgaria have to go through every day and I think that they deserve to be paid well. There are always ways to find money,’ Guittard said.
Peace Corps Volunteer Jim Guittard has written a song in support of the Bulgarian teachers demanding salary increases
Teachers tussle in Bulgaria
09:00 Mon 24 Sep 2007 - Petar Kostadinov
Caption: Peace Corps Volunteer Jim Guittard. Photo: PETAR KOSTADINOV
[Excerpt]
TAKING A STAND: Jim Guittard from the US has written a song in support of the Bulgarian teachers demanding salary increases. Guittard is an English teacher at the Simeon Radev Secondary Language School in Pernik near Sofia. ‘My passion is music and this is how I express my views and this was my motivation to write and compose Stachkata (The Strike),’ Guittard told The Sofia Echo. ‘I know that as a Peace Corps volunteer I am not supposed to take any stand, but I see what teachers in Bulgaria have to go through every day and I think that they deserve to be paid well. There are always ways to find money,’ Guittard said. The song is written in Bulgarian and Guittard describes it as in the Bob Dylan style.
The song is available at http://www.archive.org/details/Stochkata
For yet another week, the Bulgarian Teachers Union (BTU) and Education Minister Daniel Vulchev have failed to achieve a compromise to stave off a teachers’ strike.
Again the main actor on the stage was BTU leader Yanka Takeva. The first school day of the school year, September 15, went as planned by Takeva, who wants a 100 per cent increase of teachers’ salaries as of October 1. Teachers staged a one-hour protest by sitting in their classrooms while pupils and parents waited outside the school for the official programme to begin. This was just a warning for Vulchev, because Takeva said that if nothing changed by September 24, teachers would embark on a full-scale strike.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: September, 2007; Peace Corps Bulgaria; Directory of Bulgaria RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Bulgaria RPCVs; Protest; Speaking Out; Music
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