Across Bulgaria, communities are confronting energy poverty not just as a technical issue, but as a social one. Through the Women in Solidarity for Energy (WISE) initiative, citizens are building local hubs of support, developing practical toolkits, and turning vulnerability into agency. Their work shows how energy solidarity can strengthen resilience, improve public health, and restore dignity. Milena Stateva, who leads the WISE project, shares her experience.
When the opportunity arose to lead Women in Solidarity for Energy (WISE) in Bulgaria, it felt like a natural continuation of my life’s work, helping vulnerable women become subjects of their own stories, capable of standing for themselves.
The project was launched by EnAct in France with a simple but radical goal: to transform energy solidarity into a practice of empowerment. Not to create superheroes or pressure women to perform, but to rebuild trust, autonomy, and shared vitality in communities where poverty, gender inequality, and energy insecurity collide.
For me, this work grows out of the Orion Grid, an initiative I founded to address all forms of violence — structural, systemic, and interpersonal — and to create reflective spaces that nurture political agency. It is within these spaces that solidarity, not charity, becomes the organising principle.
When communication breaks down
Before turning to energy solidarity, our team at Orion Grid spent a year studying climate communication through our UNEARTH Project, funded by the European Climate Foundation. We wanted to understand how information about environmental and social risks moves, and often fails to move, through Bulgarian media, institutions, and daily life.
What we found wasn’t ignorance or denial. It was exhaustion. Citizens were drowning in facts and warnings but starved for meaning. The problem wasn’t that people refused to engage, but that they felt talked at rather than invited in.
That insight reshaped everything. We began to build spaces for conversation rather than instruction, spaces where listening came before speaking, trust before change. We learned that emotion can be a form of knowledge, and that dialogue, not data, opens the door to action.
Communities in action — the WISE approach
When WISE began in Bulgaria, we set out to translate the idea of energy solidarity into daily life. Instead of viewing energy poverty as a technical or individual problem, we treated it as a social and community challenge, something best addressed through cooperation and care.
Soon, the project began attracting women from all walks of life: students, single mothers juggling precarious jobs, Ukrainian refugees, and young volunteers eager to help. In its first year, WISE established the National Collective for Energy Solidarity, organised public discussions and film events, and brought together NGOs, activists, architects, and women experiencing vulnerability to meet as equals.
By the end of 2024, Sofia hosted a Pan-European conference that helped put Bulgaria’s energy poverty struggles on the continental map. The next phase of the project focuses on self-organisation: training volunteers to support women in their homes while hosting workshops on leadership, storytelling, and community resilience.
The aim is simple: to turn awareness into agency. To link material improvements, better insulation, energy-saving guides, practical skills, with empowerment and participation.
Energy, health, and dignity
Energy poverty isn't just about bills or insulation. It’s about health and dignity. Across Bulgaria, as in much of Europe, women are disproportionately affected. They are the ones deciding whether to heat their homes or buy medicine, the ones caring for children in cold, damp flats, the ones coping with the anxiety of unpaid bills.
These daily struggles quietly erode physical and mental health, leading to respiratory illnesses, depression, and isolation. A warm, well-lit home is not a luxury; it’s the foundation of wellbeing and civic life. When people can keep their homes comfortable, when they understand how energy systems work and how to navigate them, they become more resilient, less fearful, more hopeful.
Every activity within WISE, from practical workshops to storytelling circles and to European policy meetings, is, in a sense, a small act of public health. It addresses not only the social determinants of wellbeing but also the very fabric of community life.
From local sparks to European solidarity
Despite our small size and limited resources, Orion Grid has become an important voice in European discussions about energy justice. From Athens to Amsterdam, the WISE network connects local efforts into a shared movement of women’s solidarity. Together, we are turning isolation into cooperation, transforming community spaces into laboratories of democracy.
Of course, challenges remain. Many of us juggle several jobs just to stay afloat. Resources are scarce. But the response, from NGOs, volunteers, and women themselves, has been extraordinary. Each new partnership, each shared story, is proof that solidarity can survive even in scarcity.
Our hope for the coming year is simple, to keep creating spaces of care, learning and hope, because in the end, energy solidarity isn’t just about warmth, it’s about power. And every time a woman feels confident enough to take part, to speak up, or to help another, that power begins to shift.
If our work resonates with you, we invite you to support Orion Grid and help us provide these spaces of care, learning, and hope alive.
Learn more about Women in Solidarity for Energy (WISE) here.
Click below or learn more about how energy poverty is being addressed in Bulgaria:
Milena Stateva
Milena Stateva, PhD is a social researcher and facilitator based in Bulgaria. She founded Orion Grid, a methodology addressing structural and interpersonal violence through reflective spaces that foster agency, democratic learning, and collective care. A significant part of her current work focuses on energy solidarity, climate justice, and community wellbeing.