The practice received First place in the Best Practice in Bulgarian Local Self-Governments 2016/2017, category I. Municipal support for civic initiatives

The "With Tundzha in the heart" platform unites the efforts of the local community in the 44 settlements of the municipality to solve important public issues through partnerships and positive constructive dialogue. It encourages and supports the involvement of local structures, organizations and business representatives in initiatives that provide for tangible and lasting change in the living conditions.

The platform includes several initiatives. One of them is "The Spirit of My Village", which supports the cultural centres (chitalishte) in creating new or enriching the existing ethnographic and local lore collections in Tundzha Municipality with the joint efforts of the local community, institutions, NGOs and businesses. The goal is to enhance civil patriotic self-awareness and volunteer participation in initiatives.

The second initiative of the platform, entitled "Let's remember the feat and to honour the memory of the heroes", deals with taking care of the green areas around the many monuments of the heroes who gave their lives for freedom built on the territory of the municipality. With this youth initiative the municipality of Tundzha created a successful model of shared responsibility for preserving the historical heritage and, in particular, the monuments of the perished in the wars.

The third community initiative is "Together with Tundzha municipality", which enables the local community to identify specific problems and to implement solutions on competitive basis with the financial support of the municipality and through volunteer work. The idea of this initiative is to support the participation of the people directly in the implementation of their initiatives.

The idea of the platform is provoked by the young people, the secretaries of the cultural centres, the directors of the educational and childcare facilities, the sportsmen and the artists in the municipality. It united the efforts and resources of all for the sake of one cause - the municipality of Tundzha and its inhabitants.

Most of the projects and initiatives included in the "With Tundzha in the heart" are already a reality. Immediate and fruitful communication with local communities, as well as the usage of a mechanism for implementing innovative and socially meaningful initiatives, gave valuable results. Cultural centres, mayoralties, church trustees, schools, kindergartens, youth NGOs and inhabitants of the settlements united their efforts and realized their initiatives: they gave a more beautiful look to the squares in the villages; honoured the memory of the heroes who died in the wars, cleaning and caring about the areas around the monuments; preserved their way of life and culture in the ethnographic collections; created new spots for sports and recreation. A series of public initiatives were launched within the framework of the call for proposals "Together with Tundzha Municipality".

More than 30 settlements in different forms joined the platform. Agreements were signed to support 41 public initiatives provoked by the local communities of the villages of Tundzha municipality, totaling BGN 62,435.