WHO IS NADEZHKO
Welcome! We are Nadezhda and Stefan Grigorovi, a family and the creators of NadEzhko!
NadEzhko is our good-spirited, adventurous, traveling hedgehog! His name means “to be above pricking others (above anger)”, and he is, indeed, a hedgehog with soft spines and a soft heart. NadEzhko teaches the children how to become good adults, and teaches the adults how to become good children again. We could translate the meaning of his name in English as “HedgeHope”!
NadEzhko is the name of our family company and the NadEzhko Social Bakery (social enterprise) in Sofia, Bulgaria, founded in 2014 and part of the Bread Houses Network. The company creates also various social, educational and game methods, services and products. The proceeds of all these support the social programs and free bread therapy of the Bread Houses Network, which Nadezhda initiated in 2009 and now connects more than a hundred people in about 20 countries on 5 continents.
What we do
Bread building
3S: Sifting-Shaping-Sharing
Cultures and Breads of the World
Theater of Crumbs & Kitchen Music
Playing kitchen
Bread in the Dark
How we create Social Change
Our methods create a tradition: we have managed to transform a simple and universally-known activity (bread-making), traditionally limited to the home, the kitchen, and women, and turn it into a range of socially transformative activities, from community empowering workshops to corporate team building and CSR strategy, from therapy for people with special needs to educational program for alternative creative careers for low-income youth. Bread-making became a new and even fashionable cultural experience engaging both men and women and people of all ages and classes, inspiring them to appreciate the diversity and seek the unity!
This is more than just a business, there are many touching personal stories behind our enterprise, where people’s lives have been transformed in the same way that the dough is transformed into bread!
All of our unique methods and know-how have been summarized in the educational game "Bakers Without Borders", recognized with the global UN Intercultural Innovations Award, which can be used as a handbook for organizing various community baking, unifying and therapeutic activities.
Media Coverage
Bulgarian National TV coverage of NadEzhko bakery
TV coverage in Italy, during the European Commission on Capital of Culture visit presenting our project to open a Bread House bakery
Presentational video of the Bread Houses Network
National Geographic Traveler of the Year article
Where Women Cook Magazine, USA
Baking Bread, Making Communities
EuroPost article