“Resilience for All”. This is the motto that has been guiding RESILOC efforts in Bulgaria. This motto has also become part of the understanding of two Bulgarian communities – that of the village of Tetovo (RESILOC trial community) and the town of Dve Mogili (early adopter community).
Throughout RESILOC, the two communities followed a very similar journey, although with a different duration. Multiple workshops were conducted with identified relevant stakeholders who were part of the established local resilience team (LRT).
The communities went through a preparatory phase, in which the volunteers from the local resilience teams and the facilitators from the RESILOC project established the baseline for the work in the community. This included creating a community profile with the most important community information which helps systematize the information for the common understanding within the LRT.
The two LRTs co-decided what are the two most relevant hazard scenarios in the two communities. Tetovo worked with wildfires and snowstorms, while Dve Mogili worked with wildfires and fake news. The LRTs were empowered to work with the RESILOC scientific framework (the so-called DIP framework coming from dimensions, indicators and proxies).
The second major phase during the communities’ RESILOC journey was data collection. Data collection took place after the LRTs agreed on the set of indicators and proxies they deemed relevant for the hazard scenarios. Data collection included accessing public databases, community surveys and expert estimations. Once the needed data was collected, it was input in the RESILOC cloud platform. The assessments that resulted thereafter were validated with the local communities in Tetovo and in Dve Mogili through a Citizens Jury. Since the assessments and resulting strategic recommendations were approved within the communities, a strategy was issued and presented to policy makers in Ruse Region
