A lovely story

I was in Bulgaria over the past few days and, when I arrived on Wednesday, I was told that Petar-Emil Mitev would be at the conference where I was giving a keynote speech on Friday.  You may not know who he is but I have met him a few times, though the last time was in South Africa in 2006.

Petar is now in his 80s.  He was the second President of rc34, from 1982 to 1986, and a great pioneer of youth research.  His last book was four years ago, with Siyka Kovacheva, on young Bulgarians in the EU.

Anyway Petar was going to receive a special award and I was asked to present it to him.   What a surprise, and a great honour, for me.  I think we were both rather moved to tears!

I told him privately that Toronto had allowed us to move rc34 to the next generation.

For information, the first two Presidents were of his generation (born in the 1930s) but then the next SEVEN Presidents were MY generation (born in the very late 1940s or the 1950s).  Ani, as the last President and Sharlene, the current President have of course cemented the generational shift, but now the whole team (except me) is of their generation.  Isn’t that great!

September 30, 2018

Howard Williamson