(Minghui.org) The city of Stara Zagora hosted the seventh edition of the Hello, Health! Festival on October 12 and 13, 2024, and Falun Dafa practitioners were invited to participate.
The festival was held on the excavated site of the ancient forum Augusta Traiana, which was built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius 161 to 180 A.D. During his reign, he also constructed many straight streets, which earned the ancient city the nickname, “The city of straight streets and linden trees.”
The Falun Dafa booth was staffed by practitioners from across Bulgaria: Stara Zagora locals, as well as from Plovdiv, Peshtera, Yambol, Veliko Tarnovo, and Chepelare. Many people stopped at the practitioners’ booth to learn more about Falun Dafa and its principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
A practitioner talks with a visitor.
Distributing fliers
People sign the petitions.
Festival Organizer: “We are grateful for Falun Dafa.”
Engineer Rumyana Uzunova, the organizer of the health festival, lived in London for many years. When she returned to Bulgaria, she decided to launch the Hello, Health! festival.
Ms. Uzunova said she learned about Falun Dafa when she lived in England. She met practitioners who told her how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecutes the practice in China. “We support what you are fighting for,” she said.
“The Falun Dafa group in Stara Zagora have been with us from the beginning. We are very grateful for the help they have given us,” Ms. Uzunova added.
Falun Dafa Welcomed at the Festival
The practitioners had a full schedule presenting the health benefits of the practice during the two-day festival. At their booth, which was located in an area with high pedestrian traffic, they displayed banners and distributed informational flyers about Falun Dafa.
People who wanted to help the practitioners in China who are being persecuted by the CCP for their faith could sign two petitions: one condemning the CCP for its numerous human rights abuses and the other, launched by the Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), calling on the G7+7 nations to take action against the CCP’s forced organ harvesting from Falun Dafa practitioners and other prisoners of conscience.
Practitioners also demonstrated the five exercises and taught them to anyone who wished to learn. For children, they ran a workshop to teach them the benefits of living according to the values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
The exercise demonstration drew many onlookers, and some joined right in to start learning the movements. Others asked where they could keep learning the exercises and bought Falun Dafa books to learn more about the practice.
Visitors learn the Falun Dafa exercises.
After hearing about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa in China, people signed the petitions in support of the practitioners in China.
Children Embrace the Values of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance
The highlight of the children’s workshop at the Falun Dafa booth was the book The Lotus Story, which teaches children honesty, kindness, and patience. The lotus is a symbol of these values.
A youth dance troupe, Trajants, performed at the opening of the festival. After their performance, the children came by to participate in the workshop and learned to make origami lotuses.
Zhelyazko works at TV Stara Zagora. He is familiar with Falun Dafa and the persecution, because he has made broadcasts about the practice and worked with Bulgarian practitioners to broadcast films about Dafa. He brought his nieces to the festival to listen to The Lotus Story and learn about Falun Dafa’s values.
Kalina, who is 8, and Lucy, who is 7, were interested in the exercises. They sat down with practitioners and learned to do the fifth exercise.
Lucy and Kalina sit in the lotus position.
Another little girl, Maya, attended the practitioners’ workshop at the Hello, Health! festival in Yambol and visited practitioners again in Stara Zagora. She said that this environment made her very comfortable, and she helped practitioners teach other children.
Parents and their children have their photos taken in front of the poster showing the exercises.
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