‎"The biggest difficulty is that Bulgarian appears as a second language for almost all children. For some, it is even a third language", the school's principal Natalia Bosolova says in an interview for Radio Bulgaria. "This is the case in mixed marriages. There are parents of Turkish origin who lived in Bulgaria - they make their children learn Bulgarian. Then it becomes a third language."‎

The need to provide material resources, as well as textbooks for learning Bulgarian as a foreign language, are among the leading needs of such an educational institution, Ms. Bosolova tells us and specifies: "There are textbooks created for Bulgarian as a foreign language, but they are not 100% usable for all children. Of course, the level of Bulgarian in the first grade can be quite good for a given child, while another child may come without any knowledge of Bulgarian, and this is the biggest difficulty. In the junior high school and high school stages, history and geography are very, very difficult to teach."

The director sees a solution to the problem that some children in minority communities in Bulgaria are facing in improving the teaching methodology and additional qualifications of Sunday school teachers.

"We learn in the process of working. None of us has yet completed the methodology of teaching Bulgarian as a foreign language. We have all graduated in Bulgarian philology, preschool and primary pedagogy, history, geography," the teacher explains, hoping that this will happen.

For Detelina Kirilova, who teaches Bulgarian, the biggest difficulty is the motivation of parents. As administrator and coordinator of the Bulgarian weekend school "Abagar" in Rome, she works to unite the community of parents, children and teachers, without which there can be no education and enlightenment.

"The hardest thing for us is to motivate parents to take their children to the Bulgarian school - not because they have no respect for the language and their country, but simply because the children visit us on Saturday, after five days of school and extracurricular activities in Italian schools. Last but not least is the fact that not all of our compatriots are motivated enough for their children to study the language of their parents. The diploma they receive no longer matters much. Because it has value in the event of the child's return and inclusion in the Bulgarian education system. Over the years, this motive to teach their children Bulgarian is no longer relevant - because those who remained (in Italy) have been integrated and most likely few of them will choose to return to Bulgaria with their families."‎

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In order for Bulgarian Sunday schools not to close their doors - "we work with all the enthusiasm, with all the desire we have and patriotic thoughts," Detelina Kirilova tells us.‎

"We work to keep children in school. To offer them education in such a way that they would want to attend school. To include parents as equal partners in our work, so that we can strengthen this small school community that we are creating. This is an already proven formula for the successful inclusion and retention of children. "The other goal which is not less important is to provide quality education, i.e. the language should be studied seriously and with long-lasting results," adds Detelina Kirilova.