Linda Awanis is the Founder and Chairperson of the Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria Association. She first comes to Bulgaria in 1994. After facing all possible difficulties and challenges of the refugee life, Linda establishes the Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria in 2003 and thus begins to actively provide support to people like herself who are forced to seek for new and better living in a foreign country. Right before CRWB, Linda has been engaged in the restaurant business and successful commerce, but her real vocation she only finds in consulting people and managing a humanitarian organization.
Linda shares that upon her arrival in Bulgaria her first priority has been to study the local language and to provide good educational opportunities for her children, as well as to help them integrate in the Bulgarian society. She recalls only watching Bulgarian TV during the first couple of years here, reading in Bulgarian and seeking for local contacts and friendships as much as possible. She also raises her children this way. Therefore, the integration of refugee becomes the major goal of the association she founded. Since 2015, Linda is a Bulgarian citizen.
She participates in various trainings and seminars by the Bulgarian Red Cross and UNHCR, related to the activities and goals of the CRWB. She speaks high level Assyrian, Arabic, English and Bulgarian. For her, it is most important to get to know each and every person the CRWB works with and to gain their trust for sharing and communication, and meanwhile to keep up with the newest trends in refugee support and with the wide partnership opportunities with all other NGOs in the area.
